Reality Factor

As the cox was unavailable, we common mortals were all down at the lifeboat station this morning, practicing first aid. We had a new recruit, Charlie, all of fifteen years old, who had volunteered after hearing Rob's report on Radio Riviera. Charlie's first task, naturally, was to put the biggest and heaviest lifeboatman into the recovery position. Needless to say, despite his adolescent physique, the new lad did it like a pro, and Alain, all umpteen kilos of him, rolled over like a beached whale. A cheer went up.

As we were practicing, we had the VHF on, tuned to channel 16. Suddenly, the messages began to get urgent. There had been a diving accident off the Cap d'Antibes. We waited for CROSSMED to task us, and the beep finally came. The duty cox arrived in his jeep, with a squeal of brakes. We stuffed all the lifesaving kit back on the boat and headed out to sea. Pity we had to leave Charlie behind, he could have been useful. By common consent, he has the makings of a really good lifeboatman.

Off the Cap d'Antibes, the Cannes lifeboat met us: they had been at sea close by, exercising, and had responded spontaneously. They asked us to prepare the medical kit which we have on board, oxygen etc., so that when they landed in Antibes, all would be ready for a helicopter evacuation. But there was only one berth available by the fireboat station for offloading the victim. We had to tie up some distance away, on the millionaires' quay.

It was like an adventure film. We came in at a rate of knots, jumped across to the quay, threw helmets to those of us now on land, passed the equipment and a stretcher, and then ran like the clappers with well over a hundredweight of stuff, as the downdraught from helicopter blades whirling just above us flung the all the dustbins far into the air. We got to the other lifeboat just as it docked and just as the helicopter landed. All happenstance, really, but the simultaneous action movie would have made Hollywood green with envy and would have cost a bomb to do commercially.

The diver, a woman, was very shaken and ashen-faced behind her oxygen mask, but didn't look as if her days were in danger.

A couple of photos taken by our Cannes colleagues show the the event unfolding, and we appear, as extras, in the aftermath. Good pictures:


I don't think practice can get more real than that...