WIRRAL Coastguard Rescue Team was called upon 321 times to a wide variety of incidents from people in difficulty in 2023.
These incidents included on the coast, mud rescues, water rescues, tidal cut-offs, medical intervention, casualty evacuation, stranded marine mammals, setup of helicopter landing sites, assisting investigations into incidents in the maritime environment, safety patrols and bankside safety cover for police incidents.
The team kept their skills up to date by holding 52 planned training sessions and several more additional training sessions with their flank teams and other emergency services including HM Coastguard Crosby, HM Coastguard Southport, Flint Coastguard Rescue Team, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, Merseyside Police, North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust, RNLI Hoylake Lifeboat Station, RNLI New Brighton Lifeboat Station, RNLI West Kirby Lifeboat, British Divers Marine Life Rescue and staff at Holyhead Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre.
2023 highlights
In March the team were invited to take part in a successful counter-terrorism exercise run by police counter-terrorism forces set in a maritime environment in Birkenhead Docks.
There were many other exercises held with partner emergency services throughout the year.
In May two of the team, Hugo Chandor and Geoff Simmons, along with Crosby team colleague Pete Critchley received the Chief Coastguards Award for their part in a life-saving mud rescue.
The team welcomed two new team members, Andy Mather, who is new to the service and Paul Ambrose, who returned to the team after a four-year break.
In the summer, they were part of Eurovision 2023 in shifts with other coastguard teams from the area and beyond.
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They provided water safety cover for the tens of thousands of people from all over Europe who attended the event and fanzone.
Also in the summer, they were able to march in support of the Liverpool Pride event.
This year HMCG created specialist flood defence teams to contribute to national flood defence resilience.
These teams are crewed by volunteers from around the country including Wirral and have already seen successful deployments this year, most notably in the floods in Eastern/Central Scotland.
In the latter part of the year a new leadership team was put in place with Richard Cross appointed to the role of Station Officer, supported by existing Deputy Station Officer Dan Aspey and new Deputy Station Officer Geoff Simmons.
Team members Chris Stott and Paul Ambrose became qualified mud rescue technicians with Paul going on to qualify as Officer in Charge which means he becomes one of the team who is able to take charge and manage a maritime incident.
A spokesperson for Wirral Coastguard Rescue Team said: "A very busy year for volunteers who give up time to train for and attend incidents, to search, to rescue, to save.
"Thank you to all of the partner services who we work with but especially to our families who remain supportive when we get called out in the middle of the night, run out of restaurants (after paying the bill), abandon shopping trolleys, and come home with half a haircut.
"We are looking forward to continuing this level of service and support for the community this year. Reflect - Reset - Improve - Repeat."
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