Girvan Lifeboat launched to Incident on Culzean beach

At 12:20 Sunday 11th September Girvan lifeboat was tasked to reports of a female with a suspected broken leg around the area of Port Carrick beach at Culzean.

The lifeboat was soon making best speed North and shortly later arrived on scene.

Despite the high tide, the area is notoriously rocky and shallow, this impacted our ability to get the lifeboat in as close as we would have liked, the decision was then taken to utilise our Y-boat, with 2 casualty care trained crew rowing in to shore along with our medical equipment.

The casualty was accessed and was provided with casualty care treatment on scene, due to the nature of the tide, coastguard rescue teams could not get their vehicle close to the casualty, the decision was then made to evacuate the casualty to the lifeboat via our smaller Y-boat as this was going to be easiest on the casualty.

In order to get the Y-boat back to the lifeboat quicker, a rocket line was fired from the all-weather lifeboat to shore and attached to the Y-boat, this enabled our crew on the lifeboat to pull the Y-boat back to the lifeboat, freeing up the crew on the Y-boat from rowing and allowing them to freely tend to the casualty.

The casualty was transferred to the all-weather lifeboat where further casualty care and pain relief were provided, we had arranged a rendezvous point at Maidens Harbour where we then safely transferred the casualty into the care of the Scottish Ambulance service.

Girvan lifeboat then returned to Girvan and made ready for our next callout, we wish a speedy recovery to the casualty.

If you believe someone to be in trouble on or near the coast dial 999 and ask for the Coastguard.

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The RNLI charity saves lives at sea. Its volunteers provide a 24-hour search and rescue service around the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland coasts. The RNLI operates 238 lifeboat stations in the UK and Ireland and more than 240 lifeguard units on beaches around the UK and Channel Islands. The RNLI is independent of Coastguard and government and depends on voluntary donations and legacies to maintain its rescue service. Since the RNLI was founded in 1824, its lifeboat crews and lifeguards have saved over 146,000 lives.

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