Three in river at Totnes. One fatality.

Launch No: 34
Craft: Spirit of the Dart. D-702
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Location: Steamer Quay. Totnes

The Ambulance service were alerted at 02:25 that there were two young men in the water at Totnes. A third man had raised the alarm. On arrival at Totnes the ILB crew first searched under an upturned pram dinghy close to steamer quay. A casualty was quickly found on a moored yacht opposite the quay wet, cold and suffering from mild hypothermia. He was transferred by the ILB to the quayside. A fullscale search for the missing man was co-ordinated by the Coastguard including thr Mobile Coastguard team from Dartmouth, Police and two fire crews from Totnes and one from Paignton. The ILB searched the river and the moored yachts using searchlights and night vision sights. They were joined by two other boats manned by members of the Dart Lifeboat crew. At 04:40 the search was augmented by a SAR helicopter from Chivenor using thermal imaging equipment. After four hours on the water the initial crew was relieved but they all continued with the search. The ILB then took a dog and his handler from the Dartmoor Search and Rescue team along the boats and quayside. The dog indicated a point on the side of Steamer Quay and Police divers searched the area. Tragically a body was located on the river bed at 09:30 and the ILB crew assisted the Police divers in transfering him to the shore.

Time

Request Received 2:32am
Time at incident Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 7.016666666666667 to int loses precision in /home/dartlifeboatorg/public_html/launches-detail.php (line 272) 7 hour, 1 minutes
Time to recovery Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 7.983333333333333 to int loses precision in /home/dartlifeboatorg/public_html/launches-detail.php (line 272) 7 hour, 59 minutes
Back on Service 10:52am

Conditions

Sea/River State River Calm Drizzle. Poor visibility
Wind Direction Southwest
Wind Strength 12 knots

Lifeboat Crew

Shore Crew

Deputy Launch Authority

Station address

RNLI Dart Lifeboat Station
Coronation Park
North Embankment
Dartmouth
Devon TQ6 9RR

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9 South Embankment (Ground Floor)
Dartmouth
Devon TQ6 9BH

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