Dive boat saves lives of fishermen

The Blue Turtle crew raised the alarm after spotting the trio waving a red flare and managed to pull them to safety and call in the coastguard helicopter for help.

The fishermen had spent 11 hours adrift in a life raft after their Brixham-based fishing boat Betty G sank in Lyme Bay in the early hours of Monday, July 23. The trio – skipper Stuart Greene, Joe Moore and Max Didlick, from Brixham in Devon – were winched to safety by the helicopter.

Robert King, skipper of the Blue Turtle, said the helicopter arrived minutes after he made the emergency radio call and he backed calls to save the aircraft from being axed.

He said: “The coastguard was with me in a matter of minutes and were superbly professional and got the casualties ashore in a few more minutes.

“The helicopter dropped a winchman down and airlifted them up.

“This is a perfect example of why we need to save it, if the coastguard is coming from further away it’s only going to add more time.

“We need every signature we can get on the petition to reverse this daft decision.”

He added: “The men were frantically waving –they were cold, wet and quite shaken up. From what they told me, their boat had capsized instantly and they had no time to alert the emergency services so no one knew they were unaccounted for. It seems they snagged something on the seabed while they were trawling and went over in seconds.

“If one of the crew had been below deck they could have been trapped inside. It was very lucky that we were going past.”

All three men were winched to safety and taken to the helicopter base on Portland where they were checked over by paramedics.

Supporters of the coastguard helicopter campaign are urging people to sign an online petition to save the helicopter, which faces the axe in 2017 over budget cuts.

The petition needs 100,000 signatures to raise the issue in parliament before it closes on August 23. To sign the petition visit epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/30225