Exmouth’s volunteer RNLI crew launched yesterday evening (6 April) to reports of a person in the water by Exmouth Marina. Both the inshore and all weather lifeboats were launched at around 7.20pm.
The inshore, D Class lifeboat George Bearman was first on scene and Scott Ranft, volunteer inshore lifeboat Helm describes what happened;
‘While on route we received information from one of the volunteer lifeboat crew who runs a water taxi who said there was a man in the water, who had fallen out of his tender and was struggling to get back in.
We made our way quickly to his location and were able to pull him into the lifeboat; he was unharmed so we took him back to his yacht where his wife was waiting and transported them both ashore.
While this was happening, we received reports that there were two others in the water about half a mile down the river, again, we quickly made our way to the scene, but thankfully both casualties were on dry land with an ambulance car in attendance.
As the story unfolded, it became clear that the two incidents were connected. The yacht had taken the first two into the shore, but due to the risk of running aground, had dropped them in waist depth water, and made their way to their mooring. However, with a strong fast flowing tide in the River Exe, one of the two in the water had lost his footing and been swept down the river. Thankfully he had managed to get back to shore.’
Scott continues with some additional safety messages for anyone using the water this season, he says;
‘None of the four people involved in this incident yesterday were wearing lifejackets, it is vitally important that anyone using the water wear the correct personal protection equipment. The tidal current in the River Exe is very strong and especially more so at the moment as we have spring tides, had the alarm not been raised quickly, this could have been a very serious and potentially tragic incident.’