Episode 1 Saving Lives at Sea

We're an island nation,

drawn to the sea that surrounds us.

For many, it's a playground.

For others, it's where we earn our living.

But the sea's unpredictable.

It can change in an instant.

And when accidents happen, they happen very fast.

The sea is a dangerous place.

You don't respect the sea, the sea will bite you.

There to save our lives is a volunteer army

of nearly 5,000 ordinary people,

ready to leave their jobs, their families, to race to our rescue.

It makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up,

to know that if it wasn't for you, that people wouldn't be here.

They rescued me.

But they also saved a mum, a daughter, a sister, a wife.

Oh, my gosh!

To see someone disappear under the water right in front of you...

is brutal. It's absolutely horrendous.

Equipped with their own cameras...

-Is my light flashing?

-Yeah, is mine?

..the crews give us a unique insight

into every call-out as only they see it.

Right, there's another little wave.

Speeding through the roughest weather,

searching for people who may only have moments to live...

Can you still hear me?

For those who risk their lives, it has become a way of live.

When those pagers go off, it's life and death.

On the south coast of Ireland,

Kinsale has been a fishing port for hundreds of years.

The boats that trawl far out into the Atlantic

often run the gauntlet of storms,

whipped up across thousands of miles of open ocean.

SIREN BLARES

An urgent mayday has come in for the volunteers

of the Kinsale lifeboat crew.

As a force-eight gale has sent ships scurrying for safety,

one fishing boat has failed to reach harbour.

Winds gusting over 50mph have forced her

onto some of the treacherous rocks that litter this coast.

The land juts out in little peninsulas in lots of places,

so where it juts out, you'll have shelves of rock under the water.

The people that live in Kinsale,

we know where the dangers are.

We know where the shallow rocks are.

But with high tide, you just can't see those rocks,

and people are unprepared.

The Kinsale crew don't know exactly where the boat has grounded

or how many are on board.

The only information I had was that there was...

a boat was running ashore.

I was kind of assuming it was something small,

like a small fishing boat.

The minute we rounded the Block House,

we see the mast of the fishing vessel, so we knew where she was.

Seeing a large fishing boat, you get that moment of surprise and shock,

going, "Oh, my God!"

You know? "That's a big boat."

As she was trying to reach harbour,

the 68-tonne trawler's nets caught in her propeller.

Powerless, she's been impaled on the rocks,

and there's no sign of anyone on deck.

The boat was being hammered by big waves.

The side closest to the waves was rolling down under the water.

We were afraid that she was going to capsize, you know.

That's all we were thinking.

As every wave pushes the boat higher onto the rocks,

she's listing further over with every roll.

The crew need to find out who's on board and get them off

before the boat overturns.

We could see the door of the wheel house opening

and a figure coming out.

I still didn't know how many were on board.

That's one of the first things we were trying to assess.

But I didn't get a response.

Still unsure how many fishermen are in danger,

the crew need to work out how to get them off the boat fast,

but in these conditions, there are no easy options.

We couldn't bring our lifeboat right beside them because of the movement

of the fishing boat, so we determined at that stage

that they needed to get to us.

Yelling above the wind,

the crew tell the fishermen to swim for the lifeboat.

But in these seas, even the strongest swimmer

risks being swept away.

We decided to veer down,

which was dropping our anchor from the front of our boat and then

reversing under control of the anchor line.

Helmsman Nick needs to get in as close as possible to grab the men

as they're swept past.

Yes.

He's relying on his anchor to manoeuvre the lifeboat safely

between the fishing boat and the rocks.

I was asking the lads repeatedly, "Is she holding? Is she holding?"

while I was watching the rocks because everything had to be

spot-on. There was no room for error.

You're reversing the boat on to a rocky shore.

If you don't do it right,

you're going to end up in a very dangerous situation.

As the crew battle to get in position,

behind them a body hits the water.

You all right?

You all right there, mate?

He was eager to get off the fishing vessel.

He didn't hang around. He was gone.

-Come back here to me.

-I don't know if it was his leg or his arm,

but I cast him in and just got back to the throttles.

Put your feet in there.

One fisherman is safe,

but it's still not clear how many more are left on board.

One, two, three.

One, two...

They were cold and they were in shock, but there was no injuries.

They were just relieved to be...to be on board.

As the doomed fishing boat rolls further with every wave,

one more fisherman appears on deck.

But Nick's losing his battle to hold the lifeboat in position.

-Is the anchor holding?

-Now, just a metre from the rocks behind them,

he's almost out of room to manoeuvre.

I was running out of space.

For the first two, I could watch the anchor and watch the casualties

and move in further. But for the last man, he left it too late.

The third guy seemed to be holding on.

I remember thinking that he couldn't swim or, you know,

he, for some reason, wasn't, you know, going to make it.

Please, please, just go for it and get to us as well.

Still attached to the sea bed by the anchor,

Nick make makes a split-second call to cut lose,

so he can move in before the fisherman is swept away.

Are you all right? Are you all right?

I'm all right.

-Everybody.

-OK.

-Let's go.

-OK.

You OK?

I had to make the decision to cut the line,

just to move in to grab him before...

he got out of my reach.

If we didn't cut the anchor line...

..and grab him, I would probably say we'd have lost a life.

You know, if the weather is doing that to the fishing boat,

I'm not too sure what it would do to a human body.

The three fishermen are all from Portugal.

As they start the short journey to harbour,

their boat is left to the mercy of the sea.

Blown just a few hundred metres further down the coast,

she would have reached the harbour safely.

We weren't speaking obviously the same language,

but they have enough English to tell us they were OK.

They were, you know, grateful.

Guarding over 12,000 miles of the UK and Ireland's coastline,

each of the 238 lifeboat stations battle their own unique conditions.

But they all face one common enemy.

You can never tell what the sea's going to actually throw at you.

The sea's merciless,

and you just have to realise that

and keep that in your mind at all times.

I can't say that I know the sea very well.

I understand the sea.

Know it very well - I wouldn't say,

because nobody knows what it's going to do.

Never, ever think that you know the sea.

I love the sea. I do, but I know to respect it.

You can see how powerful and how spontaneous, if you like,

the sea can be.

I see the sea as a living, breathing creature.

You are there at its good grace.

It's important not to become complacent.

Even on a flat, calm summer's day, anything can go wrong.

It's like your best friend,

but you also have to be very aware because that best friend

could soon grow horns and turn nasty.

You can be prepared for any eventuality,

and something else will crop up.

It's split-second things, and there is no safety net.

Just 50 miles from the centre of London,

sitting at the mouth of the Thames Estuary,

Sheerness as a proud seafaring history.

It was the sight of a Royal Navy dockyard for nearly 400 years

and has been a lifeboat station here since 1970.

Where was that yacht that was anchored?

It was further down here, wasn't it?

At the point here, isn't it?

27 volunteers guard one of the most peculiar

patches around. When a call comes in,

they can find themselves

in some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

Or they can be called upriver into a myriad of waterways

and some of the quietest backwaters in the country.

You've got the river, where you've got all the different creeks.

You've got mud banks. You've got different size of tide,

so it makes it an interesting station to be on, I think.

And you don't have to love mud to work here, but it helps.

As the tide drops, it exposes acres of oozing mud flats,

criss-crossed with uncharted banks, creeks and channels.

Navigating this eerie mire can even leave the most experienced mud lark

scratching his head.

A lot of these charts, when you go into the creeks...

Because generally it costs a lot of money to survey the area.

The river gets surveyed cos there's commercial big ships

in this sort of area, but in the creeks, these areas aren't surveyed.

Haven't been surveyed for a long time.

There's a lot of buoys that are lit.

But once you get into the creeks, there's no buoys that are lit,

so it'll be like driving down a country lane with no lights.

SIREN BLARES

Just before midnight, the Sheerness crew get an urgent page.

Tonight, the coastguard has called them upriver -

someone is in the water,

somewhere in the Medway estuary.

The information given was someone in a house could hear some shouting.

Wasn't sure where it was coming from, so obviously they phoned 999.

The crew launch their inshore lifeboat.

Highly manoeuvrable, it's designed

to float in just a few inches of water.

But on an ebb tide, with the water in retreat,

even the inshore lifeboat can't float on mud.

We was going at the best speed we could

because it does dry out when the tide's out.

We knew we had to be quick to get in there,

deal with the casualty and get out again, or else we'd get stranded.

With the sea temperature under 12 degrees,

for anyone in the water, hypothermia can set in within 15 minutes.

As the body starts shutting down,

exhaustion and unconsciousness follow.

In the pitch dark, all the crew can do is head in the general direction

of where the shouts were last heard.

Five minutes after launch, the coastguard radio with an update.

The shouts for help have stopped.

We still wasn't that close yet, and you're thinking,

"We need to get there quick, and I still need to get there safely."

To make matters worse, the tide's going out.

Anyone in the water could be swept past them in the dark

and out to sea.

And the more the tide retreats,

the harder it is to navigate the emerging mud flats.

Now, with no more screams to guide them,

the odds against finding anyone are rising fast.

We put up some paraflares, which illuminate the area,

so it's a flare that glows white and lights the whole area up,

to see if we could see him in the water.

RADIO CRACKLES

There's somebody there!

Finally, half an hour after the call came in, they spot the casualty.

It's a man in his 60s.

He appears unconscious, caught in the anchor line of a moored yacht.

A passing boatman has grabbed hold of him

and is trying to pull him to safety.

Started trying to drag the casualty down the side of the boat and

tried to drag him into his boat.

The engine was still engaged, so we was still going forward

whilst holding on to the casualty's life jacket.

The casualty's just inches from the propeller.

The crew must act fast.

You all right, Chris?

-ON RADIO:

-Sheppey Mobile to coastguard, over.

Coastguard. Sheppey. On the scene...

He wasn't responding to Chris.

I could hear him shouting to the casualty

and trying to get a response out of him. He wasn't responding at all.

Coastguard, over.

-OK, grab on to that handle.

-Yep.

-Will do.

-Ready?

-Yep.

-Got it now?

-Got hold.

OK. Ready. On three. One, two...

The crew still have no idea how long the man was in the water

before his shouts were heard.

But it's clear he's in advanced stages of hypothermia.

He was extremely blue.

I've never seen anyone that cold at all.

He was still breathing. You could see he was breathing,

but he wasn't responding to anything that we were shouting at him.

-ON RADIO:

-Sheppey Mobile. Say again your last, over.

I need to get this guy to some treatment, to an ambulance now.

Paramedics are standing by at a slipway a few hundred metres away.

Slipway. Are you all right?

I'm OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Suddenly, as the crew approach shore, there are signs of life.

Experienced sailor Ken was transferring tools from his dinghy

to his yacht, when he lost his balance and slipped into the water.

A wave went past and it caught in the safety lines of the boat,

and I tipped into the water.

I thought, "What a bloody idiot!

"You stupid old git."

I didn't instantly call for help

because I didn't think anyone would hear me.

I've always been self-reliant - or stubborn I think is more the word.

I fell in under my own steam.

I must get out under my own steam.

It was after Ken's first hour in the water that he accepted he couldn't

save himself.

The tide was now running out and I was in such a weakened state,

I thought, "Well, if I don't get to shore or climb on to the mud

"of some kind, I know I'm not going to be here,"

and I managed to get along

to the next boat along, and grabbed hold of its mooring buoy,

which is where I clung and started then to...shout for assistance.

I was...resolved. If I was going to die, then, hey ho!

This is it.

Mind your fingers.

By the time he was rescued,

Ken had been in the water for over two hours.

Someone shone a torch in my face,

and at that point...

..I blanked out.

When we heard he was in the water for two hours,

we were extremely shocked that he was still alive.

How he survived as long as he did, I don't know.

He probably only had 15, maybe 30 minutes left.

I don't know, but it was lucky, I think, we got there when we did.

I was extremely surprised that the situation escalated quickly,

and it just illustrates just how something which you don't anticipate

quickly goes wrong.

Between the RNLI and my life jacket, they saved my life.

End of story.

The ever-changing seas around our coastline can catch out

even the most experienced seafarer at any time of the year.

But it's in the summer months,

when hordes of oblivious sun-seekers dive into our unpredictable seas,

that the RNLI are at their busiest,

and their ranks are swelled by an army of lifeguards.

With bases at over 240 beaches,

they save over 100 lives every summer season.

I love being a lifeguard, it's the best job in the world.

I never wake up in the morning and think, "I don't want to go to work,"

it doesn't matter what the conditions.

How does the lifeguards differ from the lifeboatmen?

They're a bit chubbier!

One of the most popular beaches in the south-west

is here at Woolacombe, in Devon.

Woolacombe's one of the busiest lifeguarded beaches in the country.

A bit of a magnet for people coming down south.

On a summer's day, it can reach sort of 10,000 people, plus.

Obviously, surf changes through the day, wind changes,

things happen and things go wrong.

On a summer's day, a two-metre swell has brought families and surfers to

the beach, and the lifeguards already have a problem in the water.

A bodyboarder is in trouble out beyond the break.

The crew launch in under two minutes.

Another lifeguard, already in the water,

has reached her on a rescue board.

We could see Niall maybe 150-200 metres out to sea.

He's asking for assistance.

Niall's very capable on a rescue board,

so for him not to be able to bring a casualty in

makes you start thinking,

"OK, there's got to be... There's a reason why."

On the way out,

we still didn't really have an idea what we were attending to.

As soon as we got to the casualty,

and then Niall was there, on the board, next to her,

and he was telling us she had a dislocated shoulder.

When I first saw her, I thought she was just kind of paddling around on

her board, didn't really, like, think she was in danger,

but then as I got closer,

I kind of noticed that she was a bit distressed.

I asked her if she would be able to get onto the board, and she couldn't

pull herself up, and then she slowly just went downhill.

She was in so much pain, she was starting to become unresponsive.

Needed to get her back to the shore as quick as possible.

We were in that area where, every now and again,

a bigger set would come through.

Whipped up by the wind,

the waves here can build up across thousands of miles of ocean.

Notoriously difficult to predict,

they hit the beach in sets of different sizes.

If the crew are hit by a big roller, it could capsize their boat.

Guys, I need to turn the boat around, quick.

The boat crew must make another circuit

to get into a better position.

While the casualty struggles in the water,

just a few hundred metres away,

her husband and eight-year-old daughter are oblivious

to the battle to save her.

I was walking down across the beach

and I happened to walk past a lifeguard.

The lad asked if my wife was out at sea.

I answered yes,

with that kind of tendency of,

"Why is the lifeguard asking me this?"

And he said, "Oh, I think your wife has hurt her shoulder."

Got to the shore, and I'm looking over, and all I can see is the boat

bobbing around behind the waves,

but it's a very broken view because the waves were so huge that day.

My biggest fear was that they were actually working on her

on the boat, and that was maybe why they weren't bringing her in.

Realistically, you think,

"How long does it take to pull someone into a boat and bring them

"back in again? So they must be doing something else,"

and that something else was the spiral that was feeding my fear,

my mind was taking me to the worst place.

It was taking too long.

Timing their approach with the incoming waves,

the crew make another attempt to get the surfer, Sam, on board.

SAM YELLS IN PAIN

I'd gone out to seek really big waves,

and they were breaking,

and every sort of third

or fourth wave was a really big one.

SAM SCREAMS IN PAIN

This wave just grabbed the board

and ripped it from my arms,

and I immediately knew

that my shoulder was dislocated.

You feel as though every nerve in your arm is on fire - it burns.

I was so far out, but yet...

I could see life happening on the beach.

That almost made it worse, because I felt like saying,

"Why can't you help me?"

You know, "Please, someone see me.

"I'm here."

I thought I was going to die at that point.

That was the point that I thought I was going to drown.

Getting pulled into the boat was just the best feeling in the world.

To know that I was going to see my daughter again was fantastic.

And I just thought, "I'm alive, and these guys are amazing."

Watch it, hold up, hold up.

By the time the boat came in,

I was so...

..anxious to see what was going on, I had to see.

I kind of didn't want to look, but I had to know, had to see.

The first thing I saw was Sam laid on her side...

..spooning, I would describe spooning

with the hunkiest lifeguard you have ever seen.

The relief of, "All right,

"she looks in terrible pain but she looks very much alive,"

washed over me, and the only thing I could say was, "Really?!"

Just at the sight of her spooning with this guy.

Can you get your hand to hold on to that zip?

-No, that one.

-No, I can't even...

-SHE SCREAMS IN PAIN

-Don't move the hand.

That will keep it really steady...

All the team can do now is help Sam with the pain

while they await an ambulance.

Had this happened on land,

it would have been a very simple call

or even me being driven to a hospital.

But at sea, it turned into something far more dangerous.

And it just makes you realise how strong those waves can be,

even on a lovely July day,

and, yeah, I'm really, really lucky.

I'm so sorry, I'm sorry.

-It's OK.

-Oh, Jesus Christ, you have no idea. I've had three kids...

Sam came back down the next day just to thank all the lifeguards, really,

and the effort they put in.

Obviously, especially Niall, for keeping her afloat in the water.

-Am I squishing you?

-No, that's OK.

-Cos I am quite big.

-No, you're not.

She came down to the beach a couple of days later

to say thank you, yeah.

And we said, "Go and get a shoulder operation!"

The RNLI has been saving lives since it was founded in 1824.

Just two years later, they built their first station in Ireland.

Today, there are 46 stations guarding the entire coast,

including here at Kinsale.

This stretch of coast,

a mixture of hard red sandstone with veins of softer rock,

has been shaped over millennia by the pounding of the Atlantic.

It's created a shoreline of breathtaking beauty,

but also deadly risks.

From huge natural harbours like Cork,

to steep cliffs littered with long, narrow caves and a sea bed of sharp

rocks, the unpredictable seas

are ready to catch out any unwary seafarer.

After 14 years' service,

helmsman Nick Searls knows the dangers of this coastline

all too well.

I would definitely think I have very good local knowledge.

I got to know maybe those places

a lot of people would never go on boats,

but I got that from people,

like older men in the community that would give you that advice.

Definitely, over the years, there's been a couple of shouts

where, you know, we've had to get in close to rocks

to get people off safely, so it does pay off.

One of those shouts was on a July day in 2013.

When the call comes in,

all the crew know is that a sailing ship has been blown onto rocks,

just a mile from Kinsale harbour.

But with the next coastguard update,

the full scale of the job is revealed.

The coastguard said, "30 persons on board."

Most of them were children.

Well, it was a bit of a game-changer.

A sailing ship, The Astrid,

was on her way to take part in an international flotilla,

when she lost engine power and was washed onto shore.

Strong waves are now pushing her even further up the rocks,

and her hull is beginning to break up.

On board are six crew and 24 trainees,

some as young as 15.

The coastguard has called in every lifeboat within 60 miles.

The Kinsale crew arrive first.

When we got there, the boat was sinking.

The children were on deck.

They were very, very frightened.

They thought this was it.

There were rocks underneath it

and the waves were crashing onto it.

It was in imminent danger, basically.

Nick, with a steely look in his eye...

I remember he looked at us, the both of us, and he said,

"Grand, we'll take them all."

Getting the lifeboat in close, Nick jumps aboard the stricken ship.

We decided, I'll go on board,

and we'll get off as many as we could and ferry them

out to other vessels that were close.

Nick starts to evacuate the youngest kids into the lifeboat.

A few at a time, they are ferried to waiting boats

who have also responded to the mayday.

Got the first 15 off...

..and then there wasn't an option any more

for the lifeboat to come in.

The swell was rising and we had gone further up the rocks,

so the life rafts were launched.

As The Astrid succumbs to the sea,

the lifeboats can no longer safely get alongside.

Nick has to find a faster way to get the remaining kids and crew off.

He launches the ship's life raft.

As the last casualty is recovered,

just one person is left on board the sinking ship.

Nick stayed on board while we were bringing the crew to safety.

The boat started to move and go down.

Nick was still on it.

I turned around, and then...wave came in.

Boat went down. So, when I came up, I was stuck.

As he prepares to abandon ship,

Nick's life jacket catches in the wreckage.

He is dragged down with it.

The boat was sinking, basically.

The area he jumped on was underwater by the time we came back.

I was under the water.

I had to undo the life jacket

and then make my way up to the highest part

of the ship, and the lads came along and took me off.

Nick made it safely to shore,

along with all The Astrid's crew and trainees,

but it could have been a very different outcome.

Couple of minutes later, it might have been a very different story,

I would think. I'm not going to presume or guess,

but it would have been a different story, like.

Do you see yourself as brave?

Uh... I don't know.

I've probably been involved in close enough to 200 shouts now,

and there's nothing the same,

everything is different, so, really, like,

when the pager goes off, we have to make the call that we need.

He didn't leave that boat until every one of them...

..every person, was saved.

He stayed, got everyone off.

We were just lucky that, you know, he was there that day.

One of Britain's most famous seafaring sons hails from here,

on the coast of Yorkshire.

Captain Cook discovered Australia in 1770, in his first command,

HMS Endeavour.

32 years later, Whitby's first lifeboat station was established.

Originally built to protect the local fishing fleet,

one of their most infamous rescues was during World War I.

A converted hospital ship, the SS Rohilla,

was on her way to evacuate wounded from Dunkirk when she ran aground on

a reef in a raging storm.

Lifeboats from five stations were launched, including Whitby.

The rescue took three days,

while crowds gathered on the cliffs watching helplessly.

In all, 144 lives were saved.

Today, 34 volunteers guard this wild stretch of coast,

where the Yorkshire Moors tumble

into the pounding waters of the North Sea,

including local landlord and father of two Ian.

I'll bring your coffee over for you.

-Yeah.

-It'll only be a few minutes. Waiting for the kettle.

Been in Whitby now for just over three years,

and now we run the local pub here

and joined up with the lifeboat about 2½ years ago.

Just listening to the lads one night in the pub,

the crew that was on there at the time,

we were having a chat and a bit of banter and I thought,

"Well, my turn. Could be a good opportunity to meet some more people

"and get involved with the community a bit more."

£13.10 altogether, please. Thank you much.

Ian is ready 24/7 to answer the pager's call,

and when it goes off, the locals can be left to wet their own whistles.

It makes life interesting.

There have been times when he'll have been serving

or just standing here chatting, and then suddenly he's gone.

He doesn't even say, "Got to go." The pager goes, gone, off.

Have you had to leave the pub mid-serving people before?

I've left it with customers in charge, yeah.

Yeah. A chap asked me one day, "What happens if that goes off, then,

"before the other staff get here?"

I said, "Well, you'll be serving." And he WAS when I got back.

And when the call comes in,

Ian and the rest of the crew head out into some of the most

merciless seas around the UK.

The sea here is very different than most places.

We have a funny sort of harbour going in and out,

with a big lip on it, so we can go from flat calm in the harbour

to 10ft rising waves within minutes.

The last day of the summer holidays -

late afternoon, an urgent call comes in.

SIREN BLARES

I was at work. I was serving somebody.

Pager went off. I legged it down here, to the station.

The crew have been called five miles done the coast to Robin Hood's Bay,

and every parent's worst nightmare.

A girl paddling on the water's edge has been caught by a rip current and

dragged out to sea.

Her father went to save her, but has also been caught.

Rip currents form under the surface of the sea.

Difficult to spot, they're one

of the biggest dangers around our shores.

They can pull the strongest swimmer far out to sea in seconds.

When you've got fairly big waves going into a beach,

you could potentially only be up to your knees,

but if a wave comes up past you,

that water's got to go back out, and it's very powerful.

And the more you get into it and the more you try and fight it,

the more that the waves will just come in and keep pushing you out and

keep pushing you out.

The ten-year-old girl and her father were last seen in the water together

over ten minutes ago.

It's always serious when there's people in the water

cos if we don't get there in time, it goes bad.

I put two and two together and realised, "Well,

"that's the same age as my daughter, could have been me and my daughter."

You are preparing for the worst, but you're hoping

the worst is not going to be there when you get there.

They could be overwhelmed by the swell,

waves over their head relentlessly.

But then also, in a water temperature of about 14 degrees

in the summer, hypothermia is going to start to set in.

And it is going to start to cut off the blood supply to the extremities,

to the limbs, and you can't use them to tread water.

You're going to drown.

With no idea how far the rip current has pulled

them out, both Whitby's inshore and all-weather lifeboats are launched.

The first reaches Robin Hood's Bay in ten minutes

and begins to search.

But the swell and strong winds have whipped the surface of the sea

into a maelstrom.

If it was a nice, calm day,

we would have been able to pick them out straightaway.

But, cos of the conditions, you couldn't see anyone.

The spray off the waves alone was making visibility for all of us

really, really bad. You know,

it just looked like a torrent of rain across the sea.

Wasn't just a case of looking for two little dots,

we couldn't see our own boat at times.

It's now been nearly an hour since the father and daughter were swept

-off the beach.

-Very anxious.

An anxious feeling.

Knowing that any hold-up could mean the difference

between them being here or not.

The coastguard have rescue teams onshore scanning the sea and have

scrambled a search and rescue helicopter.

Suddenly, from the skies,

something's spotted in the water.

All of a sudden, the downdraught of the helicopter

just flattened the waves.

I could see two heads bobbing up and down together.

Our radio operator, Jamie, just shouted on the radio,

"We've got them, we've got them."

The relief that came over me was unbelievable.

You know, I was still thinking, "Well, we still need to treat them.

"They've been in the water a long time.

"They could be injured cos they've been battered about a little bit in

"the surf and things like that,

"and there could be that potential of hypothermia,

"it could have started to set in, but they're alive!"

The little girl is pulled to safety followed by her exhausted father.

He spent almost an hour treading water

while clinging on to her.

I don't think they would have carried on for much longer,

judging by the state of the father, to be honest with you.

I mean, he was absolutely done in, he was so tired.

The little girl was crying her eyes out,

I don't think Dad was far behind.

I don't think most of us were far behind, to be honest with you.

Ben and Grace are both showing signs of hypothermia.

To get them to hospital as fast as possible, they're evacuated by air.

It's the end of an ordeal that began with just a paddle in the sea.

Grace is a real water baby.

She loves going in the sea,

so we were splashing around

down on the beach,

getting a little bit more adventurous, going up to our waist.

Then Grace went off to one side, and then I thought,

"Well, maybe I should go and try and get a bit closer to her

"cos she seems to be getting further away."

I took hold of Grace and, you know, tried to walk her into the beach,

but the sand was disappearing underneath us.

The current was too strong and we just got pushed further away.

In just a few minutes,

the rip current had carried Ben and Grace hundreds of metres out to sea.

I couldn't hear anything

over the sound of the breakers.

They were crashing over our heads.

We could hardly see the shore.

Grace was panicking, I couldn't grab hold of her,

and I could feel myself struggling to keep above water.

Ben decided to try and make an improvised floatation device

by filling his shirt with air.

I couldn't take the shirt off without letting go of her.

It got to the stage where I thought,

"We've got to do something,"

and so I pushed her away.

Then she went under

and I...pulled her back up again.

She was laid on her back and the little floatation device

was just behind her head.

Grace had said,

"I'm getting cold now, Daddy."

You know...

"I don't want to die. Are we going to be OK?"

It was at that point that we heard the helicopter go over.

You start to think about, if that was me,

if that was my child or anything like that, could I have done it?

And I think I would probably struggle to tread water for 30 to

40 minutes myself, let alone holding on to a young girl.

People say to us, you know, "You did a really good job there,"

you know, "You're a hero."

We weren't the heroes on that day,

that guy was the hero for holding on and doing what he did.

It's determination, pure determination, willpower.

You know, he's got his daughter,

probably the thing he loves most in the world, in his arms

and if he gives in, she's a goner.

I was smiling for weeks afterwards,

and I think it's mainly cos the first words out of her mouth were

"thank you". And you think you're going through the thick of it here,

but what a polite kid.

I've got kids myself so,

yeah, pulls at the heartstrings, doesn't it?

Was that the first time you'd ever saved anyone's life?

Yes. Yes, it was, yes.

I went back to work and I was floating, I was buzzing.

I was absolutely on cloud nine.

I only had half an hour left of my shift, so it was great!

Expecting the unexpected comes with the territory.

The only thing the volunteers know for sure is that they'll be facing

the same old adversary.

Anyone who spends any time at sea

quickly develops a very healthy respect for it.

We are winning the battle, but we are never going to win the war

cos the sea has always got a trick up its sleeve.

If it decides one day that, "Yeah, I'm going to wash you off the boat,"

then you are going off the boat.

You're almost riding it.

It's like it's an untameable beast.

You can't fight it.

You sort of have to go with it.

People liken it to being in a washing machine

on a high spin round.

When you've got that force of water coming on to you - cold water,

this isn't a bath or a swimming pool, this is the sea -

you can't see help coming, and how long do you cling on for?

How long do you keep your head above the water?

If you know that help is on its way, you can relax,

but if you don't know it's on its way,

it's one of the most loneliest places on the planet.

It's not just our coastal waters that can catch out the unwary.

There are nine lifeboat stations

standing guard over the nation's lakes and rivers.

Four protect the length of the Thames.

The busiest is here at Tower.

On Tower's patch,

the fast-flowing freshwater of the Thames meets the full force of the

incoming saltwater tide.

Combined with the bridges, boats and underwater obstacles,

it creates a lethal mixture of eddies, undertones

and confusing currents.

The Tower crew must take on these unpredictable waters

every time they launch.

The first time I was on a boat on that river,

I realised what a dangerous river it was.

You've got tides running faster than the sea because they're confined

between very narrow embankments.

Cos you've got the river flow

coming out and the tidal flow coming in,

you've got freshwater and saltwater meeting,

so you get this almost corkscrew effect.

So, if you're in the water, it's not just a case of moving laterally,

you get pulled down as well.

If you are in the water,

you find yourself in difficulty very, very quickly.

The weather's...

The wind strength is two,

and the wind direction is north-northwest.

That's about it. No faults on the boat,

everything is pretty good to rock and roll.

10:30 on a cold March night.

SIREN BLARES

The coastguard call out the Tower crew on an urgent job.

There's a person in the river.

Whenever you hear that someone is in the water,

certainly on the river,

100% you know straightaway that it is time critical.

The man fell into the water six miles down river.

At a top speed of 40 knots, the crew are less than ten minutes away.

But with water temperatures as low as eight degrees,

the shock of immersion can kill in minutes.

The biggest problem that people face when they end up in cold water is

cold shock, cold water shock,

and what this does is it constricts the blood vessels in the skin.

You then start to lose the power in your muscles.

It's the muscles which operate the lungs on the outside

that can't pull the ribcage open properly,

so rapidly you lose that extra air and buoyancy.

And then your mouth goes beneath the surface,

and everything gets very bad for you.

The 53-year-old man, a tourist from Turkey,

had been taking a stroll by the river with friends and family,

when he disappeared.

All of a sudden we heard the splash.

We turned around and looked, and he wasn't there.

I ran to the edge of the wall and I looked over,

and I couldn't see nothing, so I thought to myself,

"If he's gone in there, he's gone."

Well, the first thing is, falling,

you could land on something hard on your way to the water,

so will there be any broken bones?

Is he going to be having any problems breathing?

Is he going to stay afloat until we get there?

Up ahead, the crew spot Deptford Creek.

A police boat is already on the scene but can't fit under the bridge

across the entrance to get to the casualty.

When we arrived in Deptford Creek,

we saw that a gentleman was holding on to part of the embankment wall,

holding on for dear life, really.

He was on a little ledge just under the wall,

amazingly wearing a life jacket,

but he was still in the water and in a really inaccessible spot,

and there was no way out for him.

You could see that he was, without a doubt, very, very scared.

Port side.

Wedged under the embankment,

the 53-year-old is balanced precariously,

half in and half out of the water.

We are having to move very gently and very carefully at low speed

to get very close to him without pinning him

between the boat and the wall,

which would crush him to death.

Stay there for a second. Hang on a minute, mate.

Wait.

Grab my hand.

Finally in position,

the crew now need to persuade the freezing casualty

to lower himself back into the water, so they can lift him out.

-OK, mate. What's your name?

-Ismail.

OK. We're going to bring you up and over the sponson, OK?

We first try to get him over the side of the boat,

the port side of the boat.

One, two, three...

Hang on, just bring your arm round the back.

-Clamp your legs.

-But we didn't realise how big a gentleman he was.

-Try and help us, mate.

-There we are.

That's it, see if you can get your leg up on this rope.

He was actually quite heavy, and normally,

quite often we bring people over the bow of the boat,

but we decided that for this particular incident,

we'd take him over the stern platform.

Just nice and gently, just start coming round.

Just bring it back that way.

OK. Keep coming with us, all right?

Nearly there. Just watch that line.

We had got a good hold of him and we were able to get him round to the

stern of the boat and lift him in.

Well done.

Just get your breath for a minute.

Get a couple of blankets.

Just relax, don't worry.

-What did you say your name was?

-Ismail.

-Ismail?

-Yeah.

Ismail, we're going to just sit you up.

I'm going to lean you back.

The water's very cold, isn't it?

The water's very cold.

Very cold. So just relax. No problem.

He was in quite a lot of shock.

And I think he was... He had been in a bad place,

been quite worried that he might not make it out.

Yeah, and he was in a very dangerous place.

He was also very, very cold.

So, how long he would have been able to hold on for, how much longer,

-we're not sure.

-No, no hospital. I'm very good.

That's fine. But at the moment, you're on the lifeboat,

we need to get you somewhere where we can get you off

and get you checked over, all right? So you just relax for the moment.

The crew take Ismail to a waiting ambulance at a nearby pier.

En route, he reveals the cause of his late-night dip in the Thames.

OK.

-My foot...

-Your foot slipped.

Straight in, OK. All right.

It was certainly, the first selfie-related shout

that I've been on. Or that I've known about.

Put that over your head for now.

Let's get that round you.

Things happen, people take risks.

How many times do we take risks and we don't fall off a ladder,

or we don't fall down the stairs,

or we don't fall off our bike?

Luckily, there were people who got to him and rescued him.

But it could have been catastrophic.

Just get your breath for a minute.

Since his accident,

Ismail has decided to cut back on the selfie-taking.

In Devon, Sam the surfer who dislocated her shoulder

is still waiting for an operation.

But she hasn't let the experience

put her off visiting her favourite beach.

I love this beach, I've been coming here for the last 17 years.

At one point, I didn't think I'd ever see this beach again.

Or my family.

Hi, pals.

Hi.

They rescued a woman in distress with a dislocated shoulder,

but they also saved a mum, a daughter, a sister, a wife.

I'm not going in there!

I don't think I'm going to be

searching for those big waves any time soon.

But I'll certainly be back in the sea, absolutely.

And after being treated at hospital for hypothermia,

Ben and his daughter Grace were both discharged.

-Ah, there she blows.

-There she blows.

Today, Ben's back at Whitby lifeboat station for the first time.

To save my daughter,

it's just...it's just epic.

Lee's got young children, I've got young children.

That's what brings it home. It's like, you know, what you did -

treading water and holding on to your daughter...

You saved her, not us.

Ben's definitely the hero.

-Definitely.

-I'm really embarrassed now.

THEY LAUGH

SIREN BLARES

For a while, as hard as we were swimming,

we couldn't get away from the boat.

They were in the worst possible place, at the worst possible time.

To see someone disappear under the water

right in front of you...is brutal.

It's absolutely horrendous.

Oh, my gosh.

We thought that, "We've lost him, it's too late."