Coastguards and rescue hovercraft crews from Burnham-On-Sea rehearsed the rescue of a person stuck in mud and sea water during a major training exercise on Sunday (April 27th).
Crews from Burnham Coastguard and BARB worked together to simulate the rescue of a ‘casualty’ on the mudflats at Berrow ahead of the summer holiday season.
Burnham Coastguard Officer Dave Welland told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “It’s important that our crews are fully trained to carry out rescues in all types of challenging conditions, although we certainly hope that no-one gets into difficulty this summer.”
“The conditions are dangerous out on the mudflats. There’s about 18 inches of ‘soupy’ mud and sea water along some parts of the coastline and it’s easy to get into difficulty so this exercise serves as a timely reminder about the potential dangers.”
“Sunday’s training session with BARB went really well. A stretcher was used as a working platform on the mud to help release the ‘casualty’ before he was lifted onto the hovercraft and flown back to the beach.”
BARB Operations Manager Mike Lowe added: “It was a very good training exercise in which the crews successfully showed close team working.”
