The man had been caught between his yacht and his rowing boat for 20 minutes.

Volunteer RNLI lifeboat crew saved the life of a man found hanging in the water in the River Crouch earlier this week.

At 1am on Sunday 6 September, the RNLI team from Burnham-on-Crouch received a call from a member of the pubic who’d heard a man shouting for help from the river.

Lucy Ward, a member of the volunteer lifeboat crew, said: “I could see a man wedged between a yacht and a smaller rowing boat. He was clinging on to a piece of rope and his feet were hooked on to the side of it. He was desperately trying to keep himself above the water.”

The man, who had been struggling in the water for at least 20 minutes before the lifeboat crew were alerted, had lost his balance and slipped after trying to get from the smaller boat on to his yacht.

Lucy went on: “One of the crew jumped straight in to the water and swam the man over to the lifeboat. He was extremely cold and tired and probably wouldn’t have been able to hold on for much longer.”

The volunteer lifeboat crew performed medical checks on the man and took him back to the lifeboat station. From there, they transferred care over to a waiting ambulance.

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