Burnham-On-Sea Coastguards were called to three incidents during a busy day of patrols on Wednesday (May 27th).
The team has been continuing their daily patrols along the beaches at Burnham, Berrow and Brean.
In the first of three indidents, they were called to reports of a group of young children on the water’s edge on inflatables just entering the water next to Burnham jetty.
“With the tide still falling and having had to cross some fairly sticky mud to get to the water, they were in a precarious position,” says a spokesman.
“They had entered the water but thankfully didn’t get too far in before getting back out, if the tide and the wind had caught them they would be out into the bay in a matter of seconds.”
“The patrol made good time back along the beach from Brean and called them back and made the parents aware of the danger they were in.”
As the patrol headed back to Burnham beach, they were waved down by some people due to a man who had been playing football injuring his ankle.
“As we are still in the grips of the pandemic any interactions with public close up means we take every precaution to keep everyone as safe as we can.”
“In this case, one of our team put on a mask and gloves before approaching the chap and placing a face mask on him so his injury could be effectively assessed.”
“He was having trouble putting any weight on his ankle and was keen to go to A&E to get it checked. As this was the case an ambulance was called and in this case, we advised him to call the ambulance from his own phone so they could accurately triage him and he would know how long the wait was.”
The third incident of the day saw a high priority call come in from Weston super Mare where a mud rescue was needed near Uphill beach.
“We headed off to Weston-super-Mare along with our friends from BARB Search & Rescue. Once the team arrived at Weston we kitted up two mud techs ready to assist the Weston Mud Techs who were already in action.”
“BARB arrived and were quickly launched to fly all concerned back from the mud that had exhausted the person who had ventured out too far and lost all energy to get back.”
“The mud along our coastline is something you don’t want to be caught out in. Soon as you start to become trapped you instantly drain your energy just pulling your leg out to take the next step.”
“Trust us when we say it really isn’t worth the effort and exertion to try and reach the water which is a lot further away than you realise.”
“Stay on the hard standing, if you are lucky and the tide is in, by all means, have a little paddle etc, but don’t fight through hundreds of yards of gloopy mud to reach it, don’t forget, however far you get, you have the same distance to travel on the return journey!”
Once all were safe we headed back to our station on Burnham-on-Sea seafront to wash our equipment, sanitise everything we had handled, wash the truck inside and out, fill in the paperwork, give each other some banter and sort out the next days’ patrols which start all over again at 11am.
