Girl in city river rescue drama
Published: December 6, 2006
A YOUNG woman was pulled from the River Ouse by the fire service’s river rescue unit after falling into the fast-flowing waterway.
The woman - thought to be in her late teens - was plucked from danger on the city side of Skeldergate Bridge after a member of the public raised the alarm at nearby York Fire Station.
Red Watch manager Lee Smith said: “We’d just returned from a previous call when a gentleman came to the front desk saying there was a woman on one of the floating pontoons in the river.
“He said she’d fallen in and had managed to scramble on to one of the moored boats.”
One of the station’s two crews went to launch the water rescue unit boat while the other - including Mr Smith - proceeded to Skeldergate Bridge on foot.
“The woman was around the grassed area just down from the bridge. We set up around the river, deploying some lines into the water, while the other crew launched the rescue boat.
“A police officer had waded into the river, but it was too dangerous for her to continue because we were unsure where the edge of the river was due to the flooding.
“As soon as the boat came down the river, they got alongside the woman and gathered her up.”
Mr Smith said the boat then landed at Cumberland Street, where waiting paramedics rushed the woman to York Hospital. “She was very cold and was perhaps in drink. Speed was of the essence in case she’d fallen off the pontoon. The river is so fast flowing at the moment, and there’s lots of debris in the water.
“Although it all turned out OK, there was potential for serious injury - or even death - to herself, the police and ourselves.”
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