Man in sea found 'hanging onto life' by fingertips

A man was rescued after lifeboat volunteers heard his cry for help as he clung to a jetty near their lifeboat station to avoid being swept away.

The man had been dragged a considerable distance by a strong river flow on the back of Storm Franklin at Girvan in South Ayrshire on Monday night.

RNLI crew members got him out of the water and he was taken to hospital.

They said he was "hanging on to life by his fingertips" when he was rescued, 15 minutes after he fell into the sea.

The crew were beginning their regular weekly training, and said saving the man's life had been a case of "right place, right time".

Some crew members grabbed the man and helped him hang on, while others arranged for rings to keep him afloat as he was exhausted.

'Would have been swept away'

The RNLI said the man had fallen between his boat and the jetty into the water.

Girvan lifeboat coxswain Callum Govus said: "The casualty was extremely lucky in the fact we happened to be there at the time and were able to get to him so quickly, having been in the freezing water for a total of 15 minutes."

He said the man had been washed under the jetty by the "raging river".

"He had managed to cling on by his fingertips at the other side of the jetty in the harbour in total darkness," he said.

"Potentially if we had been another few minutes heading out the door to training, this man would have been swept away by the current out the pier end with the river in spate and no-one would have known it had happened."