A family of 8 – including 2 young children – have been rescued after attempting to complete the St Helens Fort Walk this morning (Thursday).
At just before 09:00 reports were received of a group of people cut off by the tide on the causeway between The Duver and St Helens Fort, prompting the launch of Bembridge RNLI’s inshore lifeboat.
Upon arrival of the lifeboat off St Helens, it transpired a passing RIB had rescued the family from their predicament and landed them back on the rocky outreach at the start of the causeway.
The casualties, who are thought to have read the tide timetable wrong, were met by Coastguard Officers from Bembridge Coastguard Rescue Team – with strong words of advice given.
Last night around 50 people completed – or attempted to complete – the annual Fort Walk, but the tides this year are against those completing the annual pilgrimage.
If you or someone else is in difficulty on the coast or at sea, or if you spot what you think may be unexploded ordnance, then dial 999 and ask for the Coastguard. Further safety information can be found at https://coastguardsafety.campaign.gov.uk/.
Get help faster by giving emergency services your exact location by using ///what3words.
what3words have divided the world into 3m squares and given each square a unique combination of three words, which means when you are in a remote area of the Isle of Wight you can get assistance much quicker without the need for local knowledge.
I said this would happen. How irresponsible, especially when they have young children in the group.
Agreed. People are idiots. Determined to do exactly what they want to do, no matter what the consequences might be to anyone else. Also, at time of writing now, it states there are 11 comments, but only 6 of them are showing. IE why are so many comments getting deleted here these days? I can’t believe it is because they are all abusive with bad language.
Maybe learn how to use the web. This site only shows a subset of posts. Does not show them all. Use the option in the title bar of the comments section to change the sorting to see other posts.
I’ve been using “the web” for more years than I care to remember and this site is definitely removing comments. There is nothing here that says anything about only a subset of posts is shown. The only option I have here is for either newest, oldest, or most voted, and no matter what option I have it set to, the same number of posts are still missing. Maybe there is a feature when using other devices or newer computers, but often there will be comments here and then later those comments are gone and no way to see them again.
Just to address your complaint about comments being removed… there may be multiple reasons for this.
We run an auto-moderation system that will flag comments which contain keywords (or meet other criteria). Furthermore, readers can upvote/downvote comments and once a certain threshold of downvotes is received, a comment is removed.
There is of course the option for people to also flag individual comments, which may result in a comment being deleted.
We have a duty of care to our readers and we have legal responsibilities. We won’t be adjusting our moderation stance – instead, we suggest that readers who find their comments are being removed may wish to think about the sorts of comments they are leaving.
It seems to me that some people are flagging comments merely because they don’t like the sentiments expressed therein. I have seen perfectly reasonable comments with no bad language and nothing abusive, just expressing an opinion that someone else may not agree with, later those comments are often gone. If someone flags a comment it should not be automatically removed, only if it is abusive or threatening. I see really ignorant and badly written comments and often using insulting words and phrases and yet many of those comments remain. Something needs to be put right here. And why has the editing option been taken away?
So misread the tide timetable but the subtle clues of the water up to your knees is a bit of a clue
If the tides not right it’s not right.
I bet they were visitors. You wouldn’t find islanders taking these risks.
Seriously? You are joking right? Do you not see how many stupid people are living on the island these days? This lot should have been left to flounder.
This will be used as an excuse to stop it. If they had not warned people away there would have been someone their to tell this lot not to go.
It is so annoying that people with this superior attitude to do whatever they want, despite warnings not to, expect decent working people to help them out when they get into trouble. With zero repercussions to them because they can do what they want! Their children will learn a valuable lesson from this. Do what you want – other people will pick up the pieces…