RNLI volunteer has marriage proposal interrupted by pager on Christmas Day
A volunteer from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) had to rush away from his partner just as she was trying on the engagement ring he’d just presented to her, as his pager sounded.
Steve Elliott, volunteer at Sheerness RNLI Lifeboat Station, was first paged at 10.40am on Christmas Day following concerns for a person’s welfare, just as he asked his partner Alla to be his wife.
Without hesitation, Steve and the rest of the crew dropped everything and made their way to the lifeboat station.
The inshore lifeboat was tasked initially, and an hour later when the pager sounded again to the same shout, the station’s all-weather lifeboat, with Steve onboard, launched.
The crews returned to the boathouse at 3.30pm, however the pagers sounded again at 6.59pm to another incident, before the pager sounded a fourth and final time at 11.34pm.
Thankfully Alla, a Ukrainian refugee who moved to Sheppey three years ago, was able to say yes to the proposal.
Steve, from Rushenden, said: ‘It is the first Christmas since my dad passed away so we had my mum here along with her two dogs and Alla’s cat, which we only managed to get out of Ukraine three weeks ago.
‘Alla and my mum were amazingly patient. People don't realise that it's the families and partners of the lifeboat crews that are the real heroes in the RNLI.
‘Going afloat is easy but to wait at home just wondering what's going on is the hard part, I don't think I could do that job.’
Coxswain Clive Hancock said: ‘It was a great effort by the three crew on the inshore lifeboat in the cold conditions and similar for the six on the all-weather lifeboats.’
There are many ways to support the RNLI’s volunteer lifeboat crews this Christmas. To find out more, please visit RNLI.org/WinterAppeal
Notes to editors
· High-res photo of Steve and Alla can be downloaded here
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