Woman rescued from grounded boat

A woman was rescued from a boat after it ran aground near Skippool Creek, says the coastguard.

Crews were called out to assist the grounded vessel at around 1.20pm on Monday August 7.

The woman, who had become distressed, was removed from the boat using a stretcher and taken to a safe place.

A spokesman for Fleetwood Coastguard said: "On arrival on scene the boat, with five persons on board had listed heavily to starboard after hitting a sand bank, one casualty was fearful of the situation and was requesting to leave the vessel.

"Due to the outgoing tide the Fleetwood lifeboat was unable to get anywhere near the vessel without getting stuck on a sandbank, at this point, Fleetwood RNLI was stood down and returned to base.

"Following an assessment of the situation and the difficulty in accessing the boat from the bank due to mud and water, a technical rescue was decided and Knott-End Coastguard Rescue Team was paged to provide assistance in this incident.

"Working together, the two crews approached the vessel, assessing the danger to ourselves and to the casualty, it was decided to take a stretcher out and put the casualty in and manually pull them back.

"After a quick medical assessment it was decided that no further assistance was required from ambulance paramedics and the casualty was taken back to a safe place."

The grounded vessel refloated at around 11.30pm the same evening.