Cinema responds with free tickets for RNLI New Brighton crew after pager call
Lifeboat volunteers were issued with complimentary tickets by The Light in New Brighton when bleeping pagers on Wednesday 16 May meant they had to leave before the film started.
Settling in at The Light cinema in New Brighton around 8.30pm with popcorn and drinks in hand, volunteer lifeboat crew Stephanie Stewart and James Siddell were awaiting the start of Deadpool 2. But during the trailers at 8.45pm both pagers sounded, meaning the pair quickly plonked everything down before racing across the road to RNLI New Brighton Lifeboat Station.
Stewart said: ‘There’s no time to waste and as James runs faster than me, he went ahead. That gave me time to yell to cinema staff on the way out that we were leaving because our RNLI pagers had gone off.
‘I didn’t know if they had heard or understood but there wasn’t time to check,’ Stewart, a hospital doctor in her day job, said. ‘Speed is essential as we never know what we’re going to be dealing with. Just a few minutes can make all the difference to the outcome for someone in trouble.’
The RNLI lifeboat launched 10 minutes later and once the volunteer crew had the situation under control, Stewart returned to The Light cinema to see if she and Siddell could use their tickets for a future screening.
‘It was around 10pm when I got back to the cinema.’ she said. ‘As there were no later options to see Deadpool 2 that night, I wondered if we could use our tickets for another day.
‘I was delighted when the ticket office gave us two complimentary tickets to use for another date. We ended up going back on Friday night [18 May] and this time got to see the whole thing. We’re both so grateful to The Light cinema. We just wanted to say thank you for being so understanding.’
The Wednesday 16 May call out for RNLI New Brighton was to a yacht in difficulty north of Fort Perch Rock. No one was injured and the vessel was escorted safely to Tranmere by RNLI lifeboat crew.
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