Eighteen lives saved in busy year for coastguards

Beer Coastguards had a busy year during 2020, having been called to duty on more than 130 occasions.

The coastguard team responded to 77 calls for help, as well as providing mutual aid 27 times for Devon & Cornwall Police, and completing 30 safety patrols.

On average, 7.5 rescue officers attended the incidents and the team's longest incident lasted over six hours.

The team's busiest month was May, when the area was enjoying some outstanding spring weather, with a total of 16 incidents, and the quietest was February with just one call-out.

Unusually, the busiest day of the year was a Wednesday, when it is normally a Saturday or Sunday.

The Beer Coastguards worked with colleagues at Exmouth 24 times, Lyme Regis 11 times, Teignmouth three times and West Bay once. Incidents spanned the coastal area from Charmouth to Topsham.

Local lifeboats were involved in 33 of the team's call-outs, and six of the incidents involved a coastguard helicopter.

A total of 18 lives were saved from situations that were considered life-threatening, but sadly the team dealt with five fatalities.

Although training was stopped between March and August due to COVID-19 regulations, the team still completed more than 1,200 hours of training during the year.