Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 13 hours ago
Today on International Lifeguard Appreciation Day, the RNLI is celebrating its lifeguards off the coast of Wales saving 315 lives over the past 18 years.
This International Lifeguard Appreciation Day (July 31), the RNLI is celebrating 25 years of its lifeguards keeping people safer on beaches across the UK and Channel Islands.
To celebrate 25 years of the RNLI Lifeguard Service, there was a specially created sand art installation on Tenby's North Beach.
Having started in Cornwall in 2001, the service was rolled out in Wales in 2008 and since then, RNLI lifeguards in Wales have saved 315 lives, completed over 3,000 rescues and have carried out more than 6.5M preventative actions.
The service first began in Wales in Pembrokeshire and RNLI beach lifeguards in the south-west Wales county have saved 164 lives, leading the number of lives saved in Wales.
Figures also show that RNLI lifeguards in Pembrokeshire have rescued 1,799 people and aided a further 15,513.
Transcript
00:00My name's Carl Amos. I'm a lifeguard supervisor here in South Pembrokeshire. I've been with the
00:06RNLI since 2008 when the RNLI first came to Wales. Today is Lifeguard Appreciation Day. This year
00:14we're celebrating 25 years of RNLI lifeguards on our beaches so we're doing a bit of sand art
00:20in celebration of that. Over the years it has changed quite significantly from the equipment
00:27we use on the beaches to our team sizes and the amount of lifeguards you may see on the
00:32beach. Training's evolved quite significantly but there's one thing that really hasn't changed
00:36which is sort of our core purpose which is prevented incidents on our beach keeping people
00:41safe and saving lives on sea. It makes me incredibly proud to play my sort of part within a wider
00:48service and to play my sort of small part in saving so many lives and helping so many people
00:55on our coast. So I've worked across South Pembrokeshire for five years. Now this is my fifth season
01:02working across eight different beaches. I've loved it and I think I'll continue to come
01:06back for maybe a few more seasons. My favourite part about the whole five years I've done here
01:12now is talking to the people that come here and especially when you help someone they tend
01:17to come back year after year and they'll often come up to you and tell you about their story
01:22and it's nice to always see them coming back every year. It's really nice to have this moment
01:2725 years to look back and think of all the different things that we've done and all the families
01:33who have gone home or individuals who have gone home to their families that might not have been
01:38if the service wasn't here and it's such a large number that you don't really think when you finish
01:44your shift at the end of the day even if it was just one person that day that it all
01:47builds up
01:48and to look at that number now it's just a really nice moment to think what we've done as a
01:52service.
Comments

Recommended