14-year-old girl among family of four pulled from English Channel in dramatic RNLI rescue
A lifeboat crew captured the harrowing moment they pulled a 14-year-old girl and her family from the English Channel as they attempted to cross one of the world's busiest shipping lane.
The footage - captured on the helmet cams of the lifeboat crew from Dover RNLI - shows them pulling women and children from the water during a recent shout to five people attempting to reach the UK.
Among the casualties were a family of four, including a teenage girl, believed to be from Afghanistan, who were all cared for by the lifeboat crew after being rescued from the stricken dinghy.
The video shows crew try desperately to keep them awake to avoid them slipping into unconsciousness as they cover the family with blankets. RNLI teams are heard encouraging the victims to keep shivering so they know they are still awake.
All five people featured in the footage, filmed in the last couple of months, were able to disembark the lifeboat into the care of the authorities upon arrival in the UK.
RNLI helmet cam footage captures the dramatic rescue of five people, including a 14-year-old girl, from a stricken dinghy in the English Channel
An RNLI crew member, who has responded to similar shouts in the Channel, told of how they had been given extra training to assist a childbirth at sea, and "also what to do should we come across tens of bodies floating face down in the water".
"Dinghies are always packed the same way - women and children huddled on the thin plywood floor, men on the outside, seated on the inflated hull. It used to be that dinghies only had 20 people in them.
"Now, we often pick up vessels with two or three times that amount. The dinghy bottom is usually swilling with a mixture of seawater, petrol and vomit," they wrote.
They said that coming across a dinghy in anything other than perfect conditions "makes mouths go dry".
Once they have rescued those in peril, they "hand out blankets and waterproof ponchos".
"One of the crew shows episodes of Peppa Pig on a mobile screen to children with wide eyes, dirty cheeks and runny noses. Some of them look like my daughter’s friends from school. I have discovered that all parents – wherever they come from - are grateful for Peppa Pig on a long journey," they wrote.
Official Home Office figures show that between January 2018 and June 2022, 51,881 migrants were recorded as arriving in the UK.
Since then 23,747 have been detected, according to provisional Ministry of Defence (MoD) data.
The provisional total for the year so far is now more than 36,400, including 3,462 crossings recorded in October to date.
The department said 856 migrants arrived in 19 boats last Wednesday.
The RNLI’s Head of Lifeboats, Simon Ling, said: "The crew testimony and rescue footage show the reality of what our volunteer lifeboat crews face when they launch to the aid of people crossing the Channel at the request of HM Coastguard.
"We are incredibly proud of our crews who continue to respond selflessly to their pagers, day or night, simply to help others. They have responded in a humbling way to this increase in demand with continued dedication, commitment and compassion.
"Each time our crews are requested to launch by HM Coastguard they do so knowing that someone’s father, mother, son or daughter could end up in the water and need help."
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