Porthcawl RNLI lifeboat crew were paged and successfully rescued Lexi, a six month old Hungarian Vizsla puppy from the sea on Friday evening (19 February).
Lexi, who was walking with her owners along the breakwater to the lighthouse at Porthcawl, slipped off the edge and plunged into the sea about 100 metres from the slipway.
With sea temperatures at eight degrees and Lexi only six months old, owner Dean Hennessy from Bridgend was afraid that she would be too frightened and unable to swim to the slipway. Besides he had no idea if she had been injured when she fell the ten metres from the breakwater into the sea.
Lexi’s owners ran to the lifeboat station where they saw crewmembers and requested immediate assistance. Crewman Ross Purchase and trainee crewman Mark Walker quickly got changed and waded out from the slipway towards the pup.
Meanwhile Lifeboat Operations Manager, Philip Missen, advised Swansea Coastguard that the lifeboat would be taken into the sea for safety and backup support.
Ross Purchase, a lighting engineer from Porthcawl said: ‘As we approached Lexi we were conscious that she would be so frightened and might go away from us into deeper water. Fortunately we were able to keep her calm and quickly caught hold of her to carry her towards the slipway. With the lifeboat now in the water we managed to lift her on board and she was taken back to the boathouse.’
Trainee crewman Mark Walker, also from Porthcawl said: ‘Being a full time fire-fighter I am used to responding to emergencies but this was my first RNLI rescue since volunteering to join the crew. Ironically there cannot be many lifeboat crew members who actually go out on a rescue without the lifeboat; however it was reassuring to know they were ready to assist if it had been necessary.’
Once back in the lifeboat station crew members dried Lexi down and she was reunited with her owners. It appeared that her only injury had been to one of her paws.
Philip Missen said: ‘Fortunately the tide had just started to come in and there was one and a half to two metres of water at the point where Lexi fell in, had it been a little earlier she would have fallen onto rocks and her injuries could have been far more serious. Her owners did the correct thing in calling for our assistance – all too often dog owners jump into the sea to rescue their dogs and become casualties themselves, sometimes losing they own lives.’
