Porthcawl RNLI volunteer crew were paged by UK Coastguard at 16:05 Wednesday 15th March following reports that a female horse rider was injured at Sker Beach, Kenfig Sands. Both the D class lifeboat, ‘Jean Ryall’, and Atlantic 85 lifeboat ‘Rose of the Shires’ were launched to assist in the incident.

Uk Coastguard Agency units from Port Talbot and Porthcawl had transported a paramedic from the Welsh Ambulance Service to the scene of the incident and medical support was administered at the beach. With no helicopter support available the decision was made to extract the casualty from the beach by sea back to a waiting ambulance at Porthcawl Lifeboat Station.

Lifeboat crewman, Simon Emms, said, ‘With thick sea mist reducing visibility to approximately 200 metres we located the incident on the beach and landed crew members ashore to assist in transferring the stretchered casualty and the paramedic onto our D class lifeboat. With the casualty suffering suspected pelvic injuries helmsman Chris Missen used the relative shelter from mussel beds at Sker to steer out to deeper water and reduce the impact from breaking waves. Once in deeper water the paramedic and casualty were transferred to the larger Atlantic 85 and brought back slowly to a waiting ambulance crew’.

Lifeboat Deputy Launch Authority, Aileen Jones MBE, said, ‘with visibility along the coast greatly reduced by sea mist today we worked with other rescue agencies and managed a safe and successful extraction of the casualty from this remote part of our coastline, hopefully the casualty will make a full recovery’.

Rescue footage available for download: Porthcawl RNLI Rescue Horse Faller and images and full news story