For generations, people have been tombstoning off cliffs. On 22 July last year, five boys ignored warnings and jumped into treacherous waters

Towards the end of a long day’s work on Portreath Beach, Cornwall, Senior Lifeguard Channy Richards and Beach Beat Officer Paul Richards (a police community support officer, PCSO, trained in lifeguarding, and no relation) spotted some boys jump more than 15m from the cliff beyond. Paul frequently warns people of the dangers of tombstoning, but some don’t listen.

When three boys came sprinting up along the cliff top to raise the alarm, Paul and Channy (pictured) were already on their way to help. Lying on their rescue boards they paddled swiftly around the pier towards the cliffs, a full 600m.

Below the cliff, two boys were being bombarded by waves and swept along by fierce, unpredictable currents. One of them went under repeatedly as they were dragged along into a cove known as ‘the quarry’. They scrambled up onto a rock, but the tide was rising rapidly. There was no means of escape.

The lifeguards found the young teenagers and Channy recalls: ‘One was waving frantically and the other was a small guy, skinny, in a baggy wetsuit, sitting with his head between his legs.’ They couldn’t hear one another across the crashing waves, but the lifeguards got a ‘thumbs down’ from the boys.

A helicopter was on its way but, with the tide rising, the lifeguards chose to act immediately. Paul explains the urgency: ‘In another few minutes we’d have been looking for bodies.’ Confident in his and Channy’s exceptional swimming ability, Paul decided to go to the boys while his colleague paddled off to get the rescue ring tethered to the harbour wall.

Paul had to judge when to make his approach, just behind a wave: ‘If I’d mistimed it, I’d have been smashed into the cliff.’ In the swell, it took all Paul’s strength to reach the children, who were ‘very scared’ – and ready to obey.

Paul first snatched onto his board the weaker one, who was vomiting repeatedly, then Channy took over so Paul could return quickly for the second child. Within minutes, both boys were back on dry land.

In a perfect example of inter-agency working coordinated by the Coastguard, the lifeguard and PCSO handed the boys over to ambulance paramedics and then the Royal Navy rescue helicopter took the smaller boy to Treliske Hospital, to be treated for suspected secondary drowning (water in the lungs that can suddenly kill after the event) and hypothermia.

Paul and Channy are pragmatic about the fact that people continue to jump. ‘Even before we’d gone home that day, another group of boys were up there, tombstoning,’ Paul recalls. But at least one child has learned his lesson: the smaller boy has been seen up on the cliff with friends – but he hasn’t jumped since.

Meanwhile, the RNLI’s Education and Beach Safety teams are working with other organisations to tackle this kind of behaviour among young people.