TIDE OF TERROR
Heading to the beach this summer? This gripping account of how one couple found themselves fighting for their lives in a Cornish cove reveals how quickly disaster can strike... and the courage of those who so often save the day
ST AGNES, 2009: it was the way we’d spent many sunny Sundays afternoons since we’d started dating — strolling along the sands of Chapel Porth in our wellington boots.
Hand in hand, my boyfriend Marc and I walked around the headland towards Wheal Charlotte, a secluded Cornish cove just a few minutes’ walk away.
Waddling along at 35 weeks pregnant with our first baby, I knew there wouldn’t be many weekends left when I could manage the walk, so I soaked it all up.
When we reached Wheal Charlotte, I was feeling tired. I put down the carrier bag of bananas I was carrying and we sat down on the sand. Marc and I chatted about decorating the nursery and getting my hospital bag ready. Then a wave of drowsiness hit me. ‘I might rest here for a bit,’ I said. As I watched Marc pad away to explore nearby rocks, I felt my eyelids droop. Basking in the sunshine, I thought: ‘This is perfect.’
Chapel Porth beach had always had a special place in my heart — as a child, my family would stay every year in a little cottage above the beach. We’d tuck into pasties from the pasty hut and paddle until the tide came in.
Suddenly, I felt a hand gently nudging my shoulder and Marc’s face came into focus.
‘Come on, Sweetheart,’ he said. ‘We’d better start making our way back round the headland. The tide’s starting to push in.’ ‘How long was I asleep?’ I asked. ‘Fifteen minutes or so,’ he replied, holding out his hand to help me up.
He was right. The tide looked miles out, but it was better to be safe. We began to walk back to the headland. Once we had rounded it, we’d almost be back at the beach. Suddenly Marc stopped in his tracks. ‘What’s up?’ I asked. ‘Look at that,’ he said, pointing at the headland. ‘The tide’s right in.’ We’d only been in the cove for half an hour. But the waves were already splashing at the base of the cliffs.
‘We’d better get a move on,’ Marc said. That was easier said than done when heavily pregnant. A slow stroll was all I could manage. The water was lapping around our feet and ankles, but I figured that if we kept up the steady pace we’d make it round the headland just fine. After all, the tide had only just started to come in. There was no way it could cut us off that quickly. Could it?
Minutes later, I had my answer. I’m 5ft tall and the water was already up to my shins. Another few minutes passed and it was at my knees, trickling into my wellies.
Suddenly, I became aware that I wasn’t walking any more. I was wading.
‘you’re going to have to move a bit faster,’ Marc said, grabbing my hand tightly.
‘I’m trying!’ I said. I was almost full term, and found it hard enough just to walk, let alone wade through waves with wet denim maternity dungarees dragging me down.
Now even a few feet were taking minutes rather than seconds to cover. It was like wading through treacle.
I bit my lip to fight back tears. Looking at the cliffs ahead and the waves rolling in, my heart pounded. Within minutes, the water was up to my chest. Marc’s drenched hoodie was weighing him down, so he took it off. I dumped the bananas, too, and felt sick as I saw the force with which the waves wrenched them away.
Gripping onto Marc, I started gasping for breath as panic gripped me. I was scared. For me. For Marc. And the baby. ‘Should we go back to the cove?’ I asked. He shook his head. Water was closing in on us from both sides.
‘It’s quicker to carry on than walk back,’ he said. ‘We just have to keep going and see if we can get around.’ If . . . We were now pushing against a tide that was running in at full force, so Marc looped his arm through the straps of my dungarees at the back, to keep hold of me.
Soon the water was shoulder deep and we were pushed up against the cliff wall. Waves were crashing all around, getting higher and stronger with every moment.
Marc managed to dig his boots into the sand beneath the water to hold himself still. He grabbed hold of a rock, holding onto me with the other arm. There was no way now for us to move anywhere.
With the waves almost 5ft high, I was on tiptoes and struggling to keep my head above water. Suddenly I felt the straps of my dungarees become taut as I was dragged away from Marc. It was a rip current, stronger than I could fight. With my feet off the ground I was tossed around horizontally by the waves.
AS THEY retreated I was lowered down again, only for them to come back stronger and harder. This time the current whipped my boots right off my feet and carried them away.
I screamed and my stomach churned. If Marc didn’t keep hold of those straps. I’d be dragged away and I’d drown. And so would our baby. I tried to put my arms protectively around my bump, but it was futile. every wave threw me violently against the jagged rocks.
We watched with horror as a huge roller crept closer and closer, until it towered above us. We both sucked in a big breath, then . . . CRASSSHHH! It broke on top of us, submerging us in an angry sea. Marc held onto me for what felt like hours until it finally pulled away from us.
But we only had a moment’s respite. Over and over the waves came in. Over and over they crashed down on us. I didn’t know how long I’d be able to take it. Or how long Marc would be able to hold on.
Thoughts started to spin through my mind. Did anyone know we were here? Had anyone seen us when we were struggling to get back? Perhaps someone had alerted the coastguard? Looking out to sea, I saw nothing. No boats, no people, just a huge 6ft wave ploughing right towards us. It was the biggest so far.
I knew it was going to engulf us. ‘Keep hold of me,’ I pleaded.
But Marc didn’t reply. His eyes were filled with desperation. I knew he couldn’t hold on to the rock any more. Sure enough, the next wave tore his hand away from it. Submerged, I thought: ‘This is it.’
But once again I burst through the surface of the waves, gulping for air. Nearby, Marc was doing the same.
Detached from the boulder, we were being smashed against the cliff and into one another with every wave that came in. The fight drained from my body. I was ready for the waves to take me. I was ready to give up.
But then, as the wave pulled out, Marc saw an opportunity, gathered all his strength and shoved me up onto a ledge at the base of the cliff.
From above, I watched the next wave bowling in. ‘Marc,’ I screamed through tears. ‘Don’t leave me!’
Mustering all his strength he pulled himself up beside me and we scrambled as far back along the ledge as we could, clinging onto one another. For a moment we were silent. There were only a few feet between us and the still-rising tide.
Reality collapsed on top of me like a ton of bricks. No one had seen us. No one was coming to get us. Within minutes, we’d be back in the water. We were as good as dead.
Suddenly, all my panic turned into what felt like calmness. I didn’t realise it then, but shock was setting in. I turned to Marc. ‘We’re not going to make it, are we?’ I asked. ‘I can’t believe we’re not going to have this baby,’ I said, tears pouring down my cheeks. Marc placed his hand on my tummy. I clasped my hand over his.
‘We should say our goodbyes,’ I said. The water was already lapping over the lip of our ledge. This really was our last chance to say anything that needed to be said.
‘I love you,’ I said, sobbing. ‘I’ve always loved you.’ ‘I love you, too,’
Marc replied, wrapping his arms around d me and d our precious i bump. b By now, I’d accepted death.
Cold gripped me. We’d only been in the water for 25 minutes, but hypothermia was setting in.
Standing on the cliff base, lashed by freezing sea spray, I was numb. I felt like this was all one big nightmare that I was waiting to wake up from. But I wasn’t waking up.
Then, out of nowhere, I saw it. At first I had to rub my eyes to make sure they weren’t playing tricks on me. But it was definitely there.
Coming around the headland. A motorboat. A bright orange motorboat, bouncing through the waves. It was an RNLI boat! ‘ HEEEEELLLLLLLPPPP,’ I screamed. I didn’t want to risk them missing missingg us, if it wasn’t us they were searching seasearching for for.
‘Over here! Help!’ Marc shouted, jumping and waving.
‘My baby!’ I yelled. I had no idea why, but I did.
It only took a moment to realise that they were heading straight for us. Help was coming.
I burst into tears, and hope sent a surge of adrenaline through my body as the boat drew nearer. But suddenly it stopped.
‘What’s happening?’ I thought out loud.
‘It’s too choppy for them to bring the boat in,’ Marc said. ‘So how will they…? I began. On cue, one of the men, dressed in the red and yellow of RNLI lifeguards and pulling a long buoyant tube, jumped out of the boat and swam towards us. My jaw dropped. I’d been in that sea. It amazed me that anyone would get in voluntarily.
Minutes later, he was at our ledge. He looked at me and did a double-take. I knew instantly what was going through his mind. She’s heavily pregnant.
He didn’t miss a beat, though. ‘I’m going to help you,’ he said.
I was nodding at him, too scared to speak, even as his colleague leapt out of the boat and pushed through the waves towards us.
‘We’re going to have to get you into the water,’ the lifeguard said.
My stomach lurched and my whole body started to shake. He wanted me to get back in that water? I’d been in it once and I didn’t want to go back in. ‘I, I, I can’t,’ I stuttered. But before I could protest further, he pulled me off the ledge, into the water and gave me the rescue tube to hold on to.
I was terrified. Again we were being tossed all over the place, bouncing off submerged rocks.
Ahead of me I could see the other lifeguard, halfway towards us in the rough sea. I allowed myself to be passed over to him and he pulled me steadily back towards the boat. Somehow he managed to keep hold of me in the swirling, rising tide.
The next thing I remember I was inside the boat and desperately looking for Marc. My heart was in my mouth as I watched the first lifeguard swimming with him, the second poised to get him into the boat. They were so close, but the waves still tossed them around.
‘ Get him back,’ I muttered, clutching my bump.
SUDDENLY a huge wave crashed over Marc and the lifeguard. Please come up. I thought, as I waited for the wave to recede.
As it did, my heart sank. They were nowhere to be seen.
‘No!’ I screamed, and collapsed. I felt like my heart was breaking.
even the waves seemed to fall silent as anguish enveloped me. until suddenly, something incredible happened. They resurfaced! The lifeguards dragged Marc into the boat beside me.
As we clutched each other, I felt overwhelmed by the men’s bravery. They hadn’t paused before coming to get us, two strangers. I looked at them in awe. They’d just saved our lives. All three of us.
‘How did you know we were here?’ I wheezed to the lifeguard who was driving the boat. ‘A surfer raised the alarm,’ he said. ‘We spotted you the second time we came past.’ The first time, we would have been under water.
Suddenly I brought my hand to my stomach. ‘I haven’t felt my baby move,’ I said.
‘We’ve requested an ambulance’, he said. ‘They’ll check you over.’
But my mind was already running over all the possible scenarios. All the blows my bump had taken against those rocks. The shock of the cold. My own panic.
I cried big, heaving sobs. It was fear and relief wrapped in one overpowering emotion.
‘Let’s get you two back,’ the lifeguard at the helm said, as he cranked up the speed and we accelerated with a roar back to shore. Minutes later we were back on the closest beach. All the adrenaline had drained from my body and I couldn’t find the energy to stand up. In the end, they had to carry me from the boat.
Crowds of people were watching as they dragged me along the sand towards the waiting ambulance. Paramedics appeared and wrapped us in foil blankets. I remember the doors closing and the sound of sirens. After that, everything is a blur.
The next thing I remember is both of us in the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Treliske. As the nurses checked me over, I replayed the day’s events over and over in my mind. We found out there had been a spring tide that had come in fast and caught us out.
Apart from being bruised, exhausted and suffering from hypothermia, we were fine. But I still hadn’t felt the baby move, so I
was rushed to the ultrasound department for a scan. While the sonographer searched for a heartbeat, Marc and I held onto one another, as tightly as we had done on that cliff.
I looked down at my bump, covered in red marks, scratches and bruises, then back up at the sonographer.
‘Is our baby OK?’ I asked, my voice shaking.
Everything was quiet as the scanner ran over my tummy.
‘Ah ha,’ the sonographer said, beaming. ‘Your baby is just fine. Listen.’
And there it was. The most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. Ta-tum. Ta-tum. Ta-tum.
‘Count your lucky stars, she said. ‘Your baby’s head is down near the birth canal. It will have been protected from all those blows.’
‘Thank you,’ I sobbed, as Marc clung on to my hand.
Eighteen days later Rae Murphy arrived, weighing a healthy 7lb. As the midwife put her on my chest, the love I felt was indescribable. ‘We thought we’d lost you,’ I sobbed. ‘I can’t believe that we’ve got you.’
Rae was six weeks old when we took her to the RNLI lifeguard unit on Porthtowan beach to meet the men who’d saved us: Damian Prisk and Chris Lowry.
THEY were smitten with Rae. ‘She’s only here because of you two,’ I said. ‘Thank you for saving my family.’
I’d wanted to thank the surfer who had spotted us, too, but were not able to track her down. We learned that when the lifeguards had returned from their unsuccessful first sweep of the cliff faces, she insisted they go back out.
For every day that passed, we had them to thank. We went on to have two more children, and, despite everything, still went to Chapel Porth beach: we were determined to replace the awful memories with happy ones. It also made me see everything my family did as a miracle. First steps, first words, even first tantrums. I took none of it for granted.
We all moved on in our lives, changing jobs, moving from the area — but we kept in touch. On the lifeguards’ birthdays, Christmas and New Year, I’d send a message to remind them of all the things they’d made possible for us.
I’ll never feel I’ve done enough to repay the RNLI, Chris, Damian and the surfer. Marc, Rae and I could have lost our lives, but instead all we lost was a hoodie, our wellies and a bag of bananas.
Damian and Chris prevented a tragedy. They’re the reason I have my family and I will be in awe of their bravery for ever.