Fowey lifeboat called out after fall on Lantic Beach

A day on one of Cornwall’s most secluded stretches of sand turned into a near three-hour rescue on Sunday, after a woman fell and injured her back somewhere no land crew could safely reach her.

The call to Lantic Beach

At 4.19pm on Sunday 16 August, Falmouth Coastguard requested the launch of Fowey RNLI‘s D class inshore lifeboat, to help recover a 35-year-old woman with a suspected back injury. She had been hurt on Lantic Beach, reached by a notoriously steep path, where crews on scene could not get her off the sand and up the cliff by land.

Fowey’s volunteer crew launched the lifeboat at 4.35pm and were on scene within eight minutes, arriving at 4.43pm. A Polruan Coastguard rescue team was already there, and the two crews worked together on casualty care while weighing up how best to get the woman to safety. A crew from the South Western Ambulance Service then arrived and took over.

Getting her off the beach

Given her injuries and the beach’s steep, difficult access, the decision was made to take the casualty out by lifeboat rather than attempt to carry her up the cliff path. She was brought aboard, and the crew left Lantic Beach at 6.40pm, running at a slow, careful speed round to the Pilot pontoon in Fowey.

There, at 7.18pm, almost three hours after the shout first came in, she was handed over to a waiting ambulance crew for the onward journey to Treliske Hospital in Truro.

It was a rescue that needed every service working the same problem from a different angle, coastguard teams first on the beach, paramedics taking over casualty care, and the RNLI crew doing the one thing none of the others could, getting her off Lantic Beach by water.

📷Credit: Fowey RNLI