West Bay Coastguard Rescue Team looks back on busiest year for 13 years

It was a very busy year for the West Bay Coastguard Rescue Team in 2020.

The team attended 83 call-outs, 24 more than in 2019, and had the added pressure of the coronavirus pandemic.

A spokesman for West Bay Coastguard said: "It has been the busiest year the team has seen for 13 years when in 2007 the Napoli shipping disaster had the team on extended operations helping to deal with the aftermath.

"2020 was also the year the team had to quickly adapt to working in a Covid environment. This added an additional complexity to search and rescue operations, which are rarely straightforward at the best of times.

"Our quietest month in 2020 was April, where the team was not called to a single incident whilst the country was grappling with the first national lockdown.

"Our busiest month was August, which had the team respond to 19 incidents.

"Our busiest day was Saturday, August 29, which had officers dealing with three back-to-back incidents totalling a combined 63 hours of team members time."

During the year, West Bay Coastguards:

• Treated and evacuated 22 injured people from beaches, rock groynes, coast paths and cliff tops, which included cuts, broken bones, fractures and dislocations

• Responded to 16 incidents of people being in difficulty in the water or cut off and trapped by the tide

• Carried out 15 Covid-related operational patrols and logistics taskings

• Searched for and helped locate eight lost, missing and vulnerable people

• Deployed rope rescue equipment a total of seven times, which included three full cliff rescues of people or dogs trapped on the cliff face and four times to support coastguards and police working in hazardous locations

• Carried out investigations, welfare checks and gave safety advice on six occasions

• Investigated three reports of suspected ordnance on the coast, one of which required a controlled detonation by the Royal Navy

• Assisted colleagues at Lyme Regis with two incidents involving people stuck in the mud

• Investigated two reports of cliff falls

• Responded to one report of a red flare sighting

• Assisted an injured cyclist at the scene of one road traffic collision

All of West Bay Coastguard Rescue Team's rescue officers are volunteers.

The spokesman added: "We want to thank all of those in the coastguard, police, fire, RNLI and ambulance service, as well as the other agencies that we have worked with over the year.

"A very special thank you goes out to our friends, family and loved ones who support us in the work that we do, which can so often be disruptive to family life.

"We wish everyone the very best for 2021."

Some of the photos were taken earlier in the year before social distancing measures were put into place.

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