Where river meets sea, standing waves are an ominous threat to anyone in a small boat. With a 2m swell and spring
tide, conditions on 21 August at the mouth of the country’s second-fastest river overwhelmed an underpowered and overloaded vessel carrying a family of seven. ‘Hitting the first wave, the boat went right over the top,’ Lifeguard Alex Bryant recalls. ‘But with too much weight in the bow, it ploughed straight down into the next wave. I watched a boat go down, but only people came back up.' When the call came from the Coastguard at 4.38pm, the crew at Littlehampton Lifeboat Station were packing up from an open day. They launched the station’s Atlantic 85 lifeboat, Renee Sherman, in just 3 minutes at 4.41pm. ‘If it’d happened 30 minutes later, we would have already gone home and it could've been a disaster,’ remembers Crew Member Martin Blaker-Rowe. Meanwhile, Alex and fellow Lifeguard Jacob McGoldrick raced to launch the inshore rescue boat (IRB) from the beach. While Alex expertly manoeuvred the IRB around six of the casualties, Jacob pulled them out in record time. 'Not an easy pick up for that boat,’ remarks Rob Devo, on the lifeboat crew that day. 'Alex showed phenomenal boathandling.’ But there was one more casualty still struggling to keep her head above water. Across the river at the Dicker Works an 11-year-old girl was being crashed against the wooden structure, hysterical as the barnacles cut her arms and legs. Matt Sapsed and George Clark, who'd spent the afternoon surfing, spotted the girl. ‘I thought to myself: “Can I realistically help her?”’ George recalls. ‘You hear about these incidents of people trying to save others and being lost themselves. But I’ve lived in Littlehampton all my life – I knew the conditions and I knew my capabilities. I ran in. ‘The waves were crashing into us and my biggest worry was that we’d be knocked into the flow of the river. Her oversized lifejacket was slipping off, but I had my arms around her, determined to hold on whatever happened. She kept crying, repeating: “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die." ‘When we saw another lifeguard powering across the river on his rescue board and the lifeboat heading out to us it was a relief to tell her: “Look, they’re coming to get you.”' Back at the station, the shaken girl was reunited with her dad. Crew Member Rob Devo says: ‘I became a father 7 weeks ago. Seeing dad and daughter in the crew room in blankets, hugging and crying together really hit me. ‘It could’ve ended very differently that day and I’m proud of how everyone – lifeguards, crew, Coastguard and even two brave surfers – worked together to get everybody out safely.’
Words: Anna Burn
Photos: Alexandru Zaharia, RNLI/Anna Burn 

‘ I watched a boat go down, but only people came back up’ It wasn't easy getting over the swell in the IRB, finding six people and pulling everyone into the boat. When we got there the children were screaming and crying and the adults were in complete silence, shocked. They had swallowed water but, frankly, with the way the boat went down, I was relieved to find that everyone was still conscious. Much of the work we've done this summer has been to do with safety and prevention. This was actually my first incident in the water with casualties but my training kicked in straight away, and made all the difference to the outcome. ALEX BRYANT
LIFEGUARD | LITTLEHAMPTON