Man thanks 'amazing' RNLI crew who pulled him from Bristol Channel

Adam Whitnall was visiting family in Bristol when he got into trouble

A man who was rescued by the RNLI after he got swept away by the Bristol Channel has thanked the "amazing" charity on its 200th anniversary.

Adam Whitnall, from London, was visiting Bristol in August 2023 when he jumped off a boat for a swim.

The 37-year-old and two others trying to rescue him were helped by the charity.

Jem Smale, 56, an RNLI volunteer, said: "The potential for it to go sideways very quickly was massive."

Mr Whitnall was dragged into the Kilkenny Bay area by the powerful Bristol Channel while on a boat trip with friends.

'Frightening'

He said: "I jumped into the water and came up quite a way past the boat and that's when the trouble started.

"People on board were saying 'swim back' and I'm quite a strong swimmer and I was swimming as hard as I could to get back to the boat but I wasn't making any ground at all.

"I had never been in water like that.

"In the end I stopped swimming as I started getting tired so I thought I better save some energy but as soon as I stopped swimming I got further and further away from the boat so quickly, it was quite frightening."

The RLNI crew rescued three people during the incident

Mr Whitnall said his partner's sister got on a paddle board to come and help and the plan was for both of them to swim back to the boat.

"But the tide was just too strong and we couldn't make it back to the boat, we just started going further and further out," he said.

The captain then tried to reach the group on a hydrofoil board but had to turn back to the boat after making it to the pair because he could not bring them back either.

He then got stranded as the equipment ran out of battery.

Mr Whitnall's girlfriend called 999 and soon the group saw blazing lights on the horizon as a lifeboat crew came to rescue them at around 21:00.

'It was naive'

"They were amazing. I was so apologetic that we had got ourselves into that situation but they were so kind," Mr Whitnall said.

He added: "Looking back on it the current was so strong. I just felt like I had wasted the RNLI's time, they probably had better things to do than come and rescue someone like me from the sea who had been careless.

"I just felt a bit stupid for having done it, it was naive to think I could jump in the sea when the current was so strong.

"Who knows what would have happened without them?"

Jem Smale said Adam Whitnall was in a precarious situation

Mr Smale said the sea could be dangerous and played "by a certain set of rules".

"Unfortunately here we have had lots of occasions when we can't find people in the water.

"If Adam had been swept away from that buoy and had gone down the Channel in the dusk, the chances of finding him were very slim.

"The trouble is we've got the second highest tidal range in the world, and as a result of that tidal range we get massively strong tidal currents," he said.

The RLNI was founded in 1824 and says it has saved more than 144,000 lives.