New Water Rescue Service Launched at Portsmouth Naval Base, UK

The Maritime Emergency Response Team has launched a new water rescue service at Portsmouth Naval Base.

This will add to the already extensive capability of the team, who are responsible for ensuring everyone on the Naval Base remains safe.

The Emergency Response Team came to the assistance of the MOD police last year in a water related incident and this, along with strong links to the Coastguard, had inspired them to extend their essential land based rescue service to include water rescue.

Senior Technician Roly Warmington and Head of Safety Health Environment Brad Hicks are key members of Portsmouth Coastguard in addition to their day jobs.

Roly said: “Balancing the day job and the Emergency Response Team can be difficult as we all have business needs to meet, but the full support of the management team allows both business requirements to happen.”

Brad is proud of the work the team are doing and continue to do, he said: “This new capability is another great step in the development of support provided to all the people of Portsmouth Naval Base. We can now immediately reach docks and basins and we have the ability onsite to safely deal with these incidents.”

Building on the strong relationship with the Coastguard, the team received first class training from their experienced instructors, learning how to safely assist someone in the water, either safely from the dock side or by deploying rescue swimmers, sometimes in very tough conditions. Armed with brand new equipment including throw lines, dry suits and floating ropes, the team are ready to rescue in the thankfully rare, but potentially critical occurrence of a water incident.

[mappress]

Press Release, May 16, 2013