RNLI lifeguards were busy throughout Summer 2010 and, for those in north Cornwall, the most challenging day came right at the end of the season

Fine weather attracted thousands of Bank Holiday visitors to Cornish beaches on 30 August, not least to Booby’s Bay, where sea swells were occasionally sending powerful waves crashing onto the shore. Among the people enjoying the surf was Chris Hart from Devon.

The 46-year-old was bodyboarding when a surging wave swept him ashore and smashed him head first onto a sandbar. ‘I remember thinking "that hurt" and swallowing a good deal of water before getting to my feet,’ he recalls. 'I walked out of the water and recall a lot of blood pouring down my face.' Volunteer RNLI Lifeguard Adrian Mayhew, who lives in Worcestershire and gave up over 100 hours of his free time to lifeguarding last year, saw Chris and offered first aid at the lifeguard hut. At this point Chris thought he'd suffered little more than a cut head, and walked to the hut by himself. 'By the time I got there I was obviously starting to talk a lot of garbage and starting to realise I'd hurt my neck and back,' he says.

Lifeguard Supervisor Dan Hutton was at the hut and tended to Chris. 'He was confused and disorientated – he had started to suffer from concussion. I treated his cut and, when I managed to get him to explain what had happened, I realised there was the possibility of spinal injury too. Getting an abrasion cut on your head from sand requires a lot of force, which can impact the rest of the body.' Having used the hut's stretcher for another potential spinal injury just half an hour before, Dan used his radio to request an ambulance and asked Lifeguard Dominic Wilson to bring another from the lifeguard hut at neighbouring Constantine Bay, half a mile away. Running at full sprint, Dominic arrived with the stretcher in minutes. Dan fitted Chris with a protective collar and strapped him to the stretcher.

While Dan was applying pressure to Chris's cut and waiting for the ambulance, the rest of the Booby's Bay lifeguard team were dealing with incident after incident. 'It was so busy that we had to ask the Constantine lifeguards to come and help with their inshore rescue boat,' says Dan.

When the ambulance arrived, Chris was taken to the Royal Cornwall Hospital at Truro. ‘Having become an RNLI member a couple of years ago, I knew the lifeguards do a brilliant job. I now have first-hand experience,’ says Chris, who was treated and checked over in hospital. ‘There was no permanent damage, just cuts, a whiplash injury to my neck and bruised pride! My special thanks go to all at the lifeguard hut, especially Dan for taking charge when I was concussed and not making a lot of sense. And I thank them for looking after my wife during the whole episode. I count myself lucky to have come off relatively lightly.’

That incident was just one of 35 attended by lifeguards at Booby’s Bay and neighbouring Treyarnon on that day. ‘These were mainly to bathers and bodyboarders caught in the rip currents around low tide,’ says Dan. ‘But there was also a girl who’d hurt herself jumping 8–10m off a cliff at Treyarnon. We treated a surfer too who crashed onto the shore just like Chris did. But none of them resulted in spinal injuries, possibly due to our treatment.’

Volunteer Adrian has since paid tribute to his fellow lifeguards that day. ‘In 20 years of lifeguarding I’ve seen some busy days but nothing like that. I’d hate to think what would have happened if there hadn’t been lifeguards on hand. I’m 40, but so many of the lifeguards are achieving great things at a young age. They are so good at what they do,’ he enthuses. ‘One of them was Vinny Prescott, an 18-year ld doing his first RNLI lifeguard season – he’s a Harlyn Bay Surf Life Saving Club member. He went about everything uncomplainingly and professionally. He got years worth of experience in one shift! It was a day I’ll never forget. I wish I could have wrapped up everything we did and put it on show as an example of what RNLI lifeguarding is all about. That’s why I volunteer – I’m proud to be an RNLI lifeguard.’