Teignmouth Lifeguards

Today I worked as Senior Lifeguard over in Teignmouth. Every weekend until peak season there are Lifeguards at Teignmouth, once peak season starts there are lifeguards 10-1800 every day until September.

Teignmouth is an interesting beach to work. There are effectively two Lifeguard units one either side of the pier. We dealt with a number of minor first aids today and rounded up a few inflatables making sure they didn’t go too far from the shore line. Teignmouth Lifeboat launched to assist us with one inflatable that was making its way away from the safety of the red and yellow flagged areas.

Today was a rare day for East Devon, there was sunshine and a surfable swell for most of the day! There were a good few people surfing in Teignmouth most of the day unfortunately it looks as if the swell has all but nearly gone.

Lifeboats, Lifeguards, Lifefirst.

This is the RNLI campaign that heighlights the good work that the RNLI does, the need and importance of Lifeguards and aims to raise funds to support all the Lifeguard resources needed around the UK coast.

According to the RNLI 2 out of 3 people in the UK will be heading to a beach this summer. How people chose there beaches depends on many things but hopefully the majority will chose their beaches because it has Lifeguards on it!

The Lifefirst campaign has been endorsed by quite a few celebrities including Zoe Ball. The YouTube video below made by then RNLI shows her talking a bit about the Lifefirst campaign.

Potential!

Today had potential to be a very busy day for us. Thousands of people on the beach, a lovely easterly wind for the kite surfers and a out going tide for most the afternoon.

Luckily we only put on had to put on a few plasters!

I have mentioned before that 95% of a Lifeguards work is preventative. Today was one of those days when our preventative actions really helped to reduce the need for rescues. Setting the red and yellow flags up in the safest spot on the beach means everyone who swims and paddles between them stands less change of getting in to trouble. We had regular patrols up and down the beach offering advice (as we do every day!), we had the RWC on the water for a few hours this afternoon making sure that people didn’t venture out in to the estuary currents and we made plenty of announcements over our PA system giving safety messages. The RWC assisted a couple of kite surfers in retrieving their lost boards but apart from that the work was purely preventative.

This weekend is the end of the half term school holidays. The local weather forecast is 23oC + Saturday and Sunday. Things may quieten down after this weekend untill the peak summer season realy starts. Between know and then we have our RWC requalification exams and 6 new RWC drivers are going to be trained so we have more qualified drivers ready for on the water patrols and rescues.

RNLI Press release

The RNLI press release about patrols starting in Teignmouth and Dawlish Warren can be found here

There are also a few photos of our excercise with Teignmouth Lifeboat on their website http://www.teignmouthlifeboat.org/RNLI_Lifeguards.html

Sunday

We have hit this season running. By 11 o’clock yesterday Exmouth beach was starting to really fill out. By lunch time the beach was getting pretty busy. There wasn’t a car parking space to be found on the sea front and the flow of people didn’t seem to ease until well in to the late afternoon.

With thousands of people on the beach we could have been very, very busy! As it turned out we were kept busy all day but never did it feel like we were reaching our maximum operating capabilities.

Early in the afternoon we received a call from Brixham Coastguard over the radio. They had received a 999 call from someone one on the beach who had spotted 3 boys swimming out from Orcombe point to the sand bar approx. 100 meters offshore. The boys were quickly spotted and we launched the RWC to head towards them. The 3 boys had just made it to the bar by the time the RWC arrived. The tide was starting to race in and cover the private island they had swum out to, so they all were given a lift back to the beach on the RWC. They were advised about the dangers of swimming in the strong tidal currents between the beach and the sand bars in Exmouth and advised that it is a lot safer to swim between the red and yellow flags where there is always a Lifeguard watching the water. We reported back to Brixham Coastguard that they were returned safe and sound to the beach.

Later on in the afternoon we were made aware of a missing child on the beach. The search for the child was quickly scaled up, involving all the RNLI Lifeguards on Exmouth beach, the Exmouth Beach Rescue Club Volunteers (who interrupted their Beach Lifeguard exams to help) the Police and Exmouth Coastguard. Luckily the child was found quickly, although quite a long way away from where they went missing.

The rest of the day went without event. Quite a few people were advised about being cut off by the tide in the bay between Sandy Bay and Exmouth. With out this advise their would have been rescues to undertake by us or the Lifeboats!

Stay safe! Enjoy the Bank Holiday!

The sun is out!

The sun is out, its a bank holiday weekend, we have a reasonably big tide that will be goong out untill after lunch. We could be busy.

A round up of the past couple of weeks.

Tomorrow we start patrolling for the season. Exmouth we are going to be patrolling 7 days a week until September. Teignmouth and the Warren RNLI Lifeguards will be full time over the half term Whitsun week then weekends only and Sandy Bay will be peak summer holidays only.

The past two weeks have flown by. It has been non stop. We have done first aid courses, practiced rescues, been on exercise with Lifeboats, Coastguards and visited the air ambulance station, undertaken competency tests, timed swims, timed runs, practiced first aid scenarios, talked through how each beach is to be patrolled, had few training sessions on the RWC, two huts have been put in at Teignmouth and the Exmouth hut moved to a better location!

Everything is ready for us to go live tomorrow.

Remember to swim between the red and yellow flags if your heading to Lifeguarded beach this holiday.

Below are a couple of low resolution pictures of the exercise with Teignmouth Lifeboat yesterday and our trip to see the Air Ambulance in Exeter today.

The exercise with Teignmouth was one of the best I have done with any other SAR resource. All the crew were really friendly and full of banter which was great. We practiced a few crew transfers from RWC to Lifeboat and Lifeboat to RWC. We also showed some of the Lifeboat Crew how we rescue people on the RWC sled and on rescue boards.

The Air Ambulance crew were great, showing us their kit and letting us practice putting a stretcher on board whilst the rotas were turning, so we are used to it should the have to come and help us out on the beach!

A couple of photos from yesterday.

There are more to come but I am on a very slow internet connection only uploading 2 photos in half an hour!

Exmouth Coastguard.

The team looking at the helo.

The helicopter taking off just before we untertook some winching practice.

First winch.

More photos of the winching to come.

RNLI Lifeguards Silver Medal

This year at the RNLI AGM two Lifeguards from North Cornwall recieved Silver Medals for a rescue they undertook last summer.

Both Lifeguards risked their lives to save a member of the public who sliped off the rocks at Trebarwith Strand beach and ended up in the sea.

The RNLI reconstruction video of the rescue is below.

Exercise with the Coast Guard

Today we had a busy day. This morning we did a few first aid based scenarios at Teignmouth. After that we headed across to Exmouth to meet some Coastguards stopping off at Dawlish Warren on route for everyone to see the new Lifeguard hut there.

Once in Exmouth we had a presentations from one of the Watch officers from Brixham Coastguard. He educated us on how the Coastguard works and what search and rescue resources are available to them and us.

At around 1500 the Exmouth Coastguard team secured a landing site for the Coastguard helicopter from Portland. It landed on the recreation ground behind the rugby club in Exmouth. I have some great pictures of the helicopter landing and taking off which I will upload as soon as I can.

The helicopter shut down its engines and all the Lifeguard team were able to have a good chat with the crew and look at their kit. It’s great to see the kit the air crew have and hear how they can help us out on the beach. A helicopter is an amazing resource for searches and casualty evacuations, both of which we do on the beach quite often.

After having a good chat and learning about how people are winched the helo took off and 3 lucky Lifeguards got to experience being winched up to the aircraft. (I have some great pictures of this as well)

It was a very beneficial exercise, meeting the helicopter crew and seeing the kit they have. All the Lifeguards in the team should now know exactly what to expect if a Coastguatd helicopter is tasked to one of our beaches.

One of the biggest points I took away from today is that the down draft from this Coastguard helicopter is massive! I mean huge! and everyone and everything within a big radius of any landing site needs to be tied down!

Tomorrow is another busy day and evening, involving Council Staff, Police Officers, Lifeboat men and Lifeguards!

Friday is busy again with kitting up our stations for our first day patrolling on Saturday, and a trip to exeter to see another diffrent helicopter!