17 emergency vehicles join three-hour seach at Coventry Canal

SPECIALIST police teams and firefighters searched the Coventry Canal for over three hours on Thursday after people reported seeing somebody in the canal.

Rafts and ladders were used as the fire service’s water rescue unit were joined by West Midlands Police’s operational support unit to search a stretch of water near to Leicester Row, just outside Coventry city centre.

The emergency services had received reports of somebody in the water at around midday and at the height of the incident a total of 17 emergency vehicles had arrived at the scene.

These included fire engines, an ambulance, paramedic officers and a number of police cars and officers.

The search came to an end at around 3.30pm and West Midlands Police has confirmed that nothing was found.

The first emergency services began to arrive at the top end of Leicester Row, near the car park opposite Halfords, shortly after midday.

Canal boat owner Ian Aldred said that two women and a man thought they saw a body in the water.

He said: “They were stretching and overlooking. I lent them my pole. But it’s dangerous and slippery.

“I said don’t mess around - call the police. It was by the willow tree.”

The emergency services’ presence grew rapidly over the next hour or so as more police officers, paramedics and the water rescue unit and technical rescue unit, both from West Midlands Fire Service, arrived to aid the search.

A shocked Andrew Evans, 55, told the Telegraph: “I’ve lived here nearly 10 years and nothing like this has happened before.”