When lifeguards found a seriously injured man in the water, it would take three RNLI teams to bring him to safety over an island’s rocky ledges

Hoylake volunteer Marcus Swaine was already in the cab of the Shannon class lifeboat’s launch and recovery vehicle when his pager went off on 25 May. Slightly puzzled, he looked to Head Launcher Ian Farrall for guidance. From his position on the sand, Ian was signalling to recover the lifeboat from the sea, rotate her and relaunch immediately. There was a shout.

‘We’d just got back from a cracking day escorting Cunard’s Three Queens into Liverpool,’ remembers Second Coxswain and Mechanic Andy Dodd, who was duty coxswain that day. ‘As soon as we hit the beach and told the Coastguard, they came back to say they needed us.’ With Hoylake’s previous Mersey class lifeboat, this would have taken 20–30 minutes. But the Shannon was away and at sea again within 12.

The call for help had come from RNLI lifeguards based 2 miles south at West Kirby, popular with holidaymakers and hikers – who often head across the sand at low tide to explore the three islands clustered at the water’s edge.

It was nearing the end of a Bank Holiday Monday as Lifeguard Mike Procter made a final sweep of Hilbre Island before it was cut off by the incoming  tide. Looking over an outcrop on the cliff’s edge, he spotted a man in the water, clinging to a rock. ‘He wasn’t swimming up and down, he wasn’t trying  to get out or in. Something wasn’t right,’ Mike explains. He radioed the Coastguard for lifeboat backup, and contacted his fellow lifeguard – and father  Norman as he cleared the top of the island on his RNLI quad bike.

Together they approached the man in the water, who was starting to weaken in the relentless waves, complaining of back pain. With no time to put on his wetsuit, Norman jumped into the water and tried to hold the casualty steady in the chop that bashed the rocks.

A third lifeguard, Tom Corlett, had heard everything unfold over the radio. Carrying a spine board and large first aid kit, Tom made his way down from the clifftop over rocks slick with seaweed. Mike handed him the radios and went in to help Norman support the casualty in the water.

‘We couldn’t lift him out on our own – on sand, maybe, but not among those uneven rocks,’ says Mike. ‘So Dad was just trying to protect him from the waves and hold his head, while I was securing his lower body.’ The tide was rising, but now all they could do was wait.

Norman had been in the water for around 20 minutes when West Kirby’s D class inshore lifeboat arrived. Helm Stuart Clark decided to veer down – he anchored the lifeboat, then steadily reversed towards the rocks until he was close enough for Crew Member Adie Gregan to jump out and wade ashore. ‘They’d done an amazing job just the three of them up until that point,’ says Adie. ‘But I saw the relief in their faces when they realised an extra person was there to help get things moving.’

The four lifesavers managed to slip the spine board under the casualty and scrambled to lift him out of the sea onto a ledge just above. But, without the water supporting his body, the man’s pain increased sharply – and the blood now running across the rocks made it clear that he had several serious injuries.

Adie and Mike started to bandage his wounds, while the others monitored his breathing and ran through vital checks. ‘The local lifeguard service was only adopted by the RNLI this year,’ says Mike, ‘but because we’d all done the RNLI’s Casualty Care course, everyone was speaking the same language and we could work better as a team.’

By this time Andy Dodd was carefully approaching aboard the Hoylake Shannon class with more medical equipment. ‘As we arrived you could hear the screams of the casualty over our engine noise,’ says Andy. Using the precision of the lifeboat’s waterjet power, he nudged the Shannon amongst the rocks as close to the inshore lifeboat as possible. Hoylake’s Ian Davies transferred onto the inshore lifeboat with a basket stretcher and Entonox gas. Then he climbed overboard and allowed himself to be washed ashore, where he joined the others looking after the casualty.

With Ian on hand, West Kirby Crew Member Adie could take a step back and plan their exit. It wasn’t an easy choice: steep, slippery cliffs and a rising tide meant that leaving via land was impossible. And, with the casualty having a suspected spinal injury and now slipping in and out of consciousness, evacuating him by boat over choppy waters wasn’t an ideal alternative. The requested helicopter from RAF Valley was reportedly on another job – 30 minutes away.

‘There were moments when it was tough, but what can you do? You can’t just leave,’ says Adie. ‘But it did feel like one thing after another. I just took a breath and tried to work out what to do. Then suddenly we got the call that the helicopter was only 12 minutes away, and that was a clarity moment: boom, right we’re onto something now, we’re minutes away from someone coming to get him out of here.’

In the minutes that followed, the team secured the casualty in the basket stretcher and managed to lift him to higher ground. Once the helicopter arrived, they transferred him to an airlift stretcher, while Adie operated the highline for the winchman.

‘I remember saying to the casualty: “You’re in the best position you can possibly be in. All these people – you’ve got so much help”,’ says Mike. ‘Every one of those people saved a man’s life that day.’ Although the casualty was in a critical condition in hospital for days afterwards, he was making steady progress in his recovery as this magazine went to print.

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'Waves were coming in ... knocking us over'

NORMAN PROCTER
LIFEGUARD | WEST KIRBY

We just tried to keep his head up and keep his airway open, keep him stabilised, but it was very windy, with the waves coming in, knocking us over, the tide coming in, flooding up, getting higher and higher … oh it was endless. The cold didn’t even come into it until we came out and knew everyone was helping, and then the adrenaline dropped a little bit and I thought, hang on, I’m a bit cold here!

The rocks are full of barnacles as well. Tom’s feet were cut to bits, my knees were cut to bits, at the time you’re not even thinking of that ... you don’t realise the bruises and cuts from getting bashed on the rocks until you’re finished.

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‘By far the most traumatic thing that I’ve witnessed’

IAN DAVIES
ELECTRICIAN
CREW MEMBER | HOYLAKE

In over 20 years on the crew, this was by far the most traumatic thing that I’ve witnessed, to see a human being in that much pain. You just need to do what you can to try and help him out of that situation.

I was holding his hand to offer him some comfort and I felt him squeezing back. I thought what a privileged position I was in – because I’m here at the pointy end of an arrowhead, and behind me are all the guys on the boat who got me there, all the guys on the shore who put us in the water, all the station management, the fundraisers … and everybody, everybody behind me. And I had the role of holding that man’s hand and caring for him in what could have been the last few minutes of his life. It was a massive moment.