Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) lifeguards had a busy weekend at Aberavon Beach, dealing with suspected spinal injuries, finding lost children, and taking part in a demonstration exercise with their colleagues from the local Port Talbot lifeboat station
A beach festival organised by New Sandfields Aberavon and a Nipper Surf Lifesaving competition organised by Surf Lifesaving Wales attracted thousands of people to the popular beach in the Neath Port Talbot county borough on Saturday 10 July.
The RNLI, the charity that saves lives at sea, had agreed to perform a demonstration exercise for the beach festival involving its inshore lifeboat based at Port Talbot and RNLI lifeguards at 3pm.
Saturday was also Port Talbot lifeboat’s station open day.
But first there were a number of incidents for lifeguards to deal with.
The first incident the lifeguards had to deal with was when a young female competitor in a nipper surf lifesaving race was accidentally hit in the back by another competitor’s board at the same time as the young girl was caught by a dumping wave.
A Surf Lifesaving Wales water safety team brought the young casualty into shore where two RNLI lifeguards gave first aid assistance with lifeguard James Hoyles fitting a surgical collar to the casualty.
An air ambulance was called and landed on the beach with the assistance of Coastguard and the Aberavon Surf Lifesaving Club, but the casualty was eventually evacuated to hospital by road ambulance (picture included).
As well as dealing with lost children and other minor first aid incidents throughout the day, the lifeguards and local lifeboat crew then carried out their demonstration exercise as part of the beach festival events.
A combination of inshore lifeboat and lifeguard rescue water craft (jet ski) to bring a “pretend” casualty – an RNLI lifeguard – back to shore from 200 metres out in the water. (picture included).
RNLI area lifeguard supervisor Tom Burgess said of the day’s events: ‘We knew we were likely to be busy given the beach festival and surf lifesaving competition taking place, so our team was well prepared, and we were really pleased to be able to show our skills jointly with the local lifeboat team.
‘As busy as it was, we were also pleased that nothing more serious happened on the day with so many people on the shoreline. The RNLI trains its lifeguards and lifeboat crew to a very high professional standard to deal with the incidents and emergencies that come our way. But, we would always stress our beach safety messages to people going out to enjoy a day on the beach.
‘Our advice of always choosing to swim at a lifeguarded beach and between the red and yellow flags applies whether beaches are quiet or exceptionally busy, as Aberavon was on Saturday.
‘RNLI lifeguards are always happy to have a chat and give advice and we hope that people take our advice and enjoy a fantastic day out by the sea.’
