Stranded duo rescued from Holy Island causeway

Posted by The Journal on Jul 21, 09 09:45 AM in News

A Royal Air Force helicopter crew yesterday carried out a dramatic rescue of a stranded couple after their car was swamped by the rising tide.

The tourists were cut off from land as the incoming tide swamped the Holy Island causeway where they had been travelling.

RAF Boulmer helicopter carries out Holy Island causeway rescue

Ill-health and mobility problems meant the 60-year-old man was unable to make for the safety of the causeway's specially built refuge on stilts. His wife, also 60, stayed by his side and the couple dialled 999.

The pair could only sit and wait as they were trapped by fast-rising waters which reached the widow level of the Fiesta.

The husband and wife were carefully winched aboard the Sea King helicopter, scrambled from RAF Boulmer at 1.15pm yesterday, after the fire service received the initial SOS.

The volunteer-manned Holy Island and Seahouses Coastguard Rescue Teams were also both sent to the scene as support.

The couple, who were from Glasgow, and enjoying a holiday in the Alnmouth area of Northumberland when they decided to visit Lindisfarne, were safely returned to the beach where they were met by a Coastguard unit.

Neither were injured, but both were described as shaken by the escape. Police are making arrangements to help retrieve their stricken vehicle.

Last night, with the summer holidays already underway, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency issued a warning for families and tourists unfamiliar with the causeway to pay close attention to tide times when visiting the popular island.

The Coastguard also revealed a total of £50,000 had been spent on the 11 rescues they were called out to on the Holy Island crossing last year.

Humber Coastguard Watch Manager Mike Green said: "The couple started to drive across the causeway, despite signs giving information about the causeway and the fact that it is closed at high tide.

"The signs, which are at both ends of the causeway, are there for a reason: to stop people from getting cut off by the tide. Every year, countless tourists are cut off on the causeway because they do not take the tides into consideration."

RAF pilot Dan Easter said the Sea King crew had been preparing for a training exercise when they were diverted to the rescue.

He said: "When we arrived we dropped one of the winchmen off at the car so he could talk to the stranded couple. They were understandably pretty nervous so we had to make sure they were OK.

"The water had just about reached the level of the windows on the car, but I believe there had only been small puddles inside the vehicle.

"The winchman was able to open the doors then we just pulled them up and set them down on the beach.

"I think the couple had been a couple of hundred metres from the refuge itself when they were caught by the tide and they both felt it was safer to remain with the car."

A spokesperson for Northumbria Police said: "Just before 1.30pm yesterday police received a report that a couple had become trapped in their car while attempting to cross the causeway between Beale and Holy Island.

"Police and the coastguard attended. The helicopter from RAF Boulmer was called and lifted the couple to safety."

Holy Island causeway rescue

COST OF A RESCUE

Each time a rescue effort is launched to help stricken motorists on the Holy Island causeway the costs mount.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency estimates each incident costs upwards of £4,000.

Last year 22 people, seven of them children, had to be rescued from the causeway, over a total of 11 incidents.

Based on the average cost for each emergency call-out, failure to properly check the causeway times cost the rescue services more than £44,000 in 2008.

Rescue bosses have said they hope to see the number of preventable incidents they are called out to significantly drop over this summer holiday.

A Coastguard spokesperson said: "The costs are significant, and that is without including equipment purchase costs, police costs, and the cost of lost work time for volunteers called out on the lifeboats."

Watch a video of the rescue »

Find out when it is safe to cross the causeway »

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