The RNLI has shared dramatic footage of crews rescuing migrants from capsized boats in the Channel as they make no apologies for saving lives at sea.
The harrowing rescues in Dover and Walmer were captured on the helmet cameras of volunteer lifeboat crews.
Footage of the missions has been released for the first time ahead of a new series of the BBC’s Saving Lives at Sea, which features interviews with crew members.
Video of the Dover rescue in August 2023 shows one lifeboat preparing to return to the town’s coast with 68 casualties on board from an earlier small boat incident before they were re-tasked by HM Coastguard.
Arriving on the scene, they were confronted with a sinking dinghy and 19 people in the water.
Volunteer crew member Paula Lin, known to crewmates as Panda, said: “It was a shock. We were looking at people in the water, some of them disappearing under the water, and it was at that moment that we took stock. We were pulling people out as fast as we could.
“There was this man who was holding onto the edge of the boat. He had no strength left. I leaned over. I laid on my front and I grabbed his arms – he had no strength to hold me.
“I looked into his eyes – his face was grey, his eyes were wide, he was so scared.
“I just knew that if I let him go, he wouldn’t be there. There was absolutely no way I was going to let him go.
“I held onto him and I called for help with my colleagues, and together we pulled him to safety.”
Everyone rescued by the RNLI in this incident survived, but six people pulled from the water by other vessels who responded to the emergency lost their lives.
In 2024, the RNLI launched 114 times to Channel crossing incidents, which was 1.2% of the total number of launches for the entire UK and Ireland last year.
During these, 1,371 people were rescued, amounting to 3.7% of the total number recorded to have crossed the channel in small boats last year.
Speaking on the footage, RNLI head of lifeboats, Simon Ling, said: “The crew testimony and rescue footage show the reality of what our volunteer lifeboat crews face when they launch to the aid of people crossing the Channel at the request of HM Coastguard.
“They are often confronted with highly challenging rescue scenarios, involving large numbers of distressed people in the water.
“We are a voluntary lifesaving rescue service, and will rescue anyone in trouble at sea, as the RNLI has been doing for more than 200 years, without judgment or preference.”
The series will also feature footage from a rescue in Walmer in December 2022, in which a number of migrants were pulled from the ice-cold water.
Walmer RNLI helm Dan Sinclair is another volunteer with experience of saving lives in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
“One thing that I would like people to understand and to realise is that when we are tasked to a small boat somewhere in the Channel, these people genuinely need our help. They are in distress.
“They’re in unseaworthy boats offshore, taking on water in all states and conditions.
“They could be frozen, their legs could be paralysed, they can’t talk, they’ve been in that position for ages, they could be crushed, families separated.
“We’re doing what we can to try and help save every single person, to keep families united and to keep people alive.”
The series of Saving Lives at Sea will debut on BBC Two on Thursday at 8pm.
