On a day where we all awoke to the sound of rain ‘pinging’ off our windows and thick fog, it turned out to be a nice afternoon, reaching 25°c – making it the 3rd warmest day this year, it was fairly Scottish-Weather-Typical that it started raining at 6:30pm for the beginning of the session ran by John and the Cruden Bay Coastguard team.
The session was started with a brief talk by John to discuss a few things. Collieston is very lucky to have 5 line-throwing ropes/bags around the harbour which can be used to save someone in a rescue situation and they are not hard to use.
World Drowning Prevention Day was last Saturday, 10 people lost their lives in the UK during the day (3 in Scotland and 7 in England) and with all the hot weather, there is increased callouts to rivers & water sites with people cooling off and getting into difficulty. We are also fortunate to have a relatively safe harbour for people to swim in, and while it would still be possible to get into difficulty, due to the pier, is it a lot less exposed compared to other nearby coastal bays.
John demonstrating how to use the throw lines to rescue someone.
Everyone having a go at rescuing some coastguard and public members ‘drowning’
After some dry land practice, it was off to the sea. Among the jelly fish in the water, 4 people were ‘drowning’ – the water was only knee deep. People standing on the edge of the sea would throw a line and then pull them back to safety.
John and team demonstrated how a throw-line can be used in another way to rescue someone. They attached the line onto a coastguard member (or swimmer), so they can swim out and grab hold of the casualty, before people onshore pull them back to safety.
Afterwards, we headed to the Pier to get some drinks and cake before John did a small section on CPR and First Aid.
Recent Comments