The new RNLI lifeguard service at Skegness, Lincolnshire, unexpectedly joined forces with the local lifeboat crew when a swimmer was at risk of drowning.

On Monday 20 July, at 5.45pm, Lifeguard Ross Noble was preparing to pack up the beach flags and rescue equipment. It had been a relatively quiet day  but Ross was keeping his eye on a man who was swimming 250m offshore. Initially, he had been  swimming strongly and confidently. But at around 5.50pm, he clearly started to tire. Although the sea was calm, the ebbing tide and the current from an outfall pipe was going  to make it difficult for him to swim back.

Ross grabbed his rescue board and paddled towards the man. ‘He was a long way out,’ remembers Ross. ‘As I got nearer I could see he was having trouble keeping his head above water. All that was going through my mind was what I would need to do when I got to him – how I was going to get him onto the board and take him back to the beach.’

Ross’s fellow lifeguards radioed the Coastguard to inform them that a rescue was taking place. Meanwhile, a mile to the north, both Skegness lifeboats, Mersey class Lincolnshire Poacher and D class Tom Broom, were out on exercise. This had already become a real rescue experience for Tom Broom’s crew, who had pulled three teenagers from an inflatable dinghy drifting offshore and taken them back to land. Now, the volunteers heard of the lifeguard rescue unfolding over the radio, and Coxswain John Irving decided they should head to the scene and offer assistance.

Ross was nearing the swimmer. ‘He was exhausted, shaking with the cold and ready to give up,’ recalls Ross, who managed to pull the man onto the front of the rescue board. As he did so, the all-weather lifeboat approached. ‘I could see the casualty was in need of urgent medical attention,’ says John, ‘so I asked Ross to bring the casualty alongside and told my crew to deploy the recovery net that can be lowered off the side.’

However, with the help of the lifeguard and lifeboat crew, the man managed to use his last ounce of energy to climb aboard. By now, the D class had arrived on scene too, and Ross was pulled aboard her with his rescue board. But, on the Lincolnshire Poacher, the casualty was not out of danger. As he was assisted into the wheelhouse, he collapsed.

‘He was still conscious when he first came aboard, but he was in shock and I think it was a classic case of someone giving up when they realise they’re safe,’ explains John. ‘We gave him first aid including oxygen, put him on a stretcher and headed to the shore.’ An ambulance had been alerted but it could not cross the deep, sandy Skegness beach to the water’s edge. There was only one vehicle that could quickly take a casualty across such terrain: the lifeboat launching tractor.

John deliberately beached the Mersey class and the shore helpers passed the stretcher and casualty to the waiting tractor, which carried him to the top of the beach. The man was transferred to the waiting ambulance, which took him to Pilgrim hospital. He was treated for hypothermia and made a full recovery. ‘It didn’t really hit me that I’d saved someone for a while,’ recalls Ross, who was in the midst of his first season as a lifeguard. ‘We packed away the kit and had a debrief, where we discussed the rescue. And then I was on the way home, and I realised I’d put my training into practice and rescued someone who could have drowned. It’s a nice feeling.’ John was full of praise for all involved: ‘This was a great example of a joined-up RNLI rescue. It involved lifeguards, lifeboat crew, and shore crew. It was lucky for the casualty that the RNLI was on hand.’

Life first is the RNLI’s campaign that aims to double the size of the charity's lifeguarding service over the next 3 years so that every UK region that needs lifeguard cover on its beaches has seasonal patrols. This year has already seen the service expanding to cover beaches in  Lincolnshire, Durham, Tyneside and Yorkshire for the first time, with additional beaches in Devon and Wales. Find out more at rnli.org.uk/lifefirst.