Record Year for Life Saving Charity
Updated: Jan 14, 2019
2018 saw the busiest year for the York Rescue Boat team since the charity was formed in 2014
2018 saw the busiest year for the team at York Rescue Boat since the charity was formed in 2014. The team responded to 122 incidents, were called out 35 times and saved 4 lives.
A look at some of 2018 Incidents
7 Animal Rescues
14 Reports of persons in the water
27 concerns for safety
5 Missing person Searches
1 Road Traffic Collision
35 Call Outs to support the emergency services
Directly Saved 4 Lives
Dave Horn, the charity's senior operations manager, said: "This has been a very busy year for us."
"There has been an increase on the previous year, but I can not state if this is because of an increase in incidents that the emergency services have had, or because of the fact that the inter-operational procedures that have now been developed allows for the emergency services to be more aware of the capability and resources that we can provide to assist them."
He added: "Whilst York Rescue Boat is known for assisting drunk people out of the river after they have tried swimming in it, the reality is that this relates to only two per cent of the charity's incidents each year."
Incidents last year ranged from missing person searches to providing assistance to vessels, as well as helping people from the rivers Ouse and Foss.
He said sadly two people had died after entering York's rivers last year, which followed an 18-month spell of no fatalities in the rivers.