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ing up cannabis plants alongside the police at Slapton Sands back in the late ‘90s. “Someone had obviously been spooked so went
down there and chucked it all in the sea on an incom- ing tide,” he laughed. “Tere was about 100 yards of green plant along the shoreline. I was called out and asked to put on a pair of gloves and accompany a po- liceman in collecting it all. We filled about three bags.” Tere are currently eight Dartmouth Coastguard
Rescue Team members - two more are due to be recruited in the new year - and they attend some 45 call-outs each year. At the time of writing, the team’s latest call-out was
to monitor a casualty rescued from a fishing boat in Start Bay. In the early hours the weary team handed over to
Paignton Coastguard for relief as they had also been tasked to a multi-agency incident earlier that day involving a car in the River Dart off Dartmouth’s South Embankment. Keith and his crew had helped set up and man cordons in the vicinity. I asked Keith if he had ever needed counselling for
any of the incidents he had been involved in. “I haven’t needed it but HM Coastguard has a welfare program called TriM (Trauma Risk Management) to support staff and volunteers who have been exposed to a traumatic event,” he said. Te main role of Dartmouth
paramedics, but we are trained in basic casualty care beyond that of a First Aider. Te two new team mem- bers due to join us in the new year both work from home which is good because I know I’ve got good cover, which is not always easy for people. “My wife Sylvie is very supportive. It’s a lot eas-
ier now the kids are teenagers but when they were youngsters I had to play it a bit by ear. If you want to go out for the evening or the day you just clock off. If there are only say two of us on call we receive back up from another station like Kingsbridge, Brixham or Paignton.” Keith’s demonstrated his very loud alert call. “People
have different things but mine has to be loud to wake me up,” he chuckled. “I have three CROs (Coastguard Rescue Officers)
who are trained to be an OIC (Officer in Charge) so they can run a call out if I’m clocked off. Although I’m an OIC and search team leader, my job is also to deal with problems within the station such as making sure the grass is cut and we have all the equipment we need.”
Te team trains every Tuesday
Coastguard Rescue is water, search and casualty care, usually near the sea. Keith explaned: “We are also trained to deal with
We’ve had call outs to drain covers, tin cans, starter motors…if someone has found something and they’re not sure what it is we’ll come out and deal with it. We’ve also had mines and rockets found.”
flares washed up on beaches. We put them in a special box and take them to a designated area. We also deal with ordnances, usually found on Slapton Sands. We set up a cordon around it, take a photo and send it to Falmouth Coastugard who forward it to the MOD in Plymouth to identify.” At this point Keith picked up a lump of rusty metal
and asked me what I thought it was. Stumped (it could have been anything) I suggested “a rocket”. “Someone found it on a beach and we were called out to it,” he said. “It’s a suspension unit for a mini! We’ve had call outs to drain covers, tin cans, starter motors…if some- one has found something and they’re not sure what it is we’ll come out and deal with it. We’ve also had mines and rockets found.” Keith is boss to a “varied” team of Coastguard
rescuers. “We have a painter and decorator, a chippie, my cousin Kev who works up at BRNC, Dartmouth’s assistant harbour master Jack Handley who is my DSO and two ladies – one owns her own clothing business and another is training to be a paramedic. We are not
at their Bidder’s Close base and spend time giving safety talks to local businesses and organisations along with patrolling their patch to ensure they have access to premis- es such as Blackness Marina. As well as devoting many hours
to the Coastguard, Keith fingers are in lots of other pies. Along with his day job as a River Officer and welder fabricator for Dart Harbour
Authority, he spent 40 years running the former Dartmouth Air Cadets and now helps run the town’s Sea Cadets. He is honorary agent for the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society with responsibility for managing the large collecting mine on Dartmouth’s promenade – something he spent nearly a year restoring in his spare time – and is a member of the Old Dartmothians association. I asked why he devotes so much of his precious time
to the Coastguard. He said: “It’s a cliché to say you want to put something back into the community. I don’t think that’s it, I think it is wanting to do some- thing a bit different because you’ve got time on your hands. Tere is a buzz too and the camaraderie you get out of it is a big draw.” Keith took his parents with him to the BBC Make
A Difference Award and although he didn’t win, was presented with a “lovely little trophy”. “I was humbled,” he said. “Tere were people there who have done far, far more worthy things. I’m sure my mum and dad were proud and it was a good day out, but you don’t do this for the praise.”
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