A graphic account of a life or death search for an inebriated 52-year-old man who had plunged into the River Medina at Cowes in the early hours of this morning (Saturday) has been given by a member of the local RNLI lifeboat.
The lifeboat was launched shortly before 02:00 after the alarm was raised by the man’s daughter. She and her father had intended to take the floating bridge from Cowes to East Cowes, only to find it had stopped for the night. The father then decided to swim to the other bank, but the daughter had no indication that he had succeeded.
The lifeboat, with Neil Archer at the helm, was soon on the scene and with the aid of its powerful searchlights began a thorough search.
Crewman Will King said:
“We firstly search the area of the chain ferry without success, and spread further along the banks.
“Then someone on the Cowes shore said they thought they heard vague moaning noises and cries for help from further down-river on the east bank. We found no-one underneath the Red Funnel vehicle jetty; then Chris Cockroft and myself heard cries coming from Venture Quay.
“There we saw a man wandering about, thoroughly soaked to the skin and shivering. He stank of alcohol and could hardly talk except to say over and over again ‘Sorry, sorry – sorry for the inconvenience’. He apparently had managed to cling to the quay jetty and pull himself up. “
Will, who is a hospital doctor, tried to warm the gentleman up as the lifeboat rushed him to Trinity Landing, where shore-based Coastguard Rescue team members were waiting to assist in his transfer to a waiting ambulance. The 52-year-old was taken to St Mary’s Hospital, Newport by paramedics.
Will continued:
“He was very lucky there was only a half-knot ebb tide flowing in the river at the time. Anything stronger and he would have been pushed out to sea and we would have just been talking about body recovery.
“After our search, which perhaps lasted ten minutes, it was such a relief to find that against real odds the man had survived.”
Portrait by Nick Edwards
