Barrow Lifeboat Station’s volunteer crew launched both of their lifeboats this morning in response to reports of a person having entered the water in Walney Channel.
The call for assistance came from the HM Coastguard base in Holyhead, at 3am this morning. The information received was that a person was reported to have entered the water in Walney Channel in the vicinity of Jubilee Bridge.
The crew was paged and the inshore lifeboat, ‘Vision of Tamworth’, was launched at 3:17am with Jonny Long at the helm, assisted by a crew of two. At 3:35am the relief all-weather lifeboat ‘Edward and Barbara Prigmore’ was also launched under the command of Coxswain, Shaun Charnley. Both lifeboats proceeded to the scene where they were instructed to conduct a wide area search either side of Jubilee Bridge. At 3:53am the crew of the inshore lifeboat located the casualty clinging to a small boat just north of the bridge. The casualty was rescued safely and handed over to the care of the North West Ambulance Service who were waiting at the nearby Ferry pitchings.
The lifeboats returned to the boathouse at 4:37am where they were washed down and made ready for the next launch.
Emergency services from across South Cumbria attended the incident and all contributed towards achieving a successful outcome.
The wind at the time of the incident was north, north westerly, Force 4-5, with the high tide at 4:33am with a height of 7.2 metres.
