The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
‘All I thought was: I can’t let her drown’
Fife model tells The Courier how she saved woman’s life with river rescue in middle of photoshoot.
A heroic Fife model described the terrifying moment she had to take a break from a London photoshoot to save a girl from drowning.
Natalie Harrison, 36, was sightseeing in the capital with family and posing for modelling shots on the South Bank for a photographer friend, James Bignell, when her daughter spotted a head rushing past in the river.
The mum-of-two, from Rosyth abandoned her modelling shoot and leaped into action, dangling herself over the edge of the wall to pull the woman from the fast-flowing River Thames.
“We were sitting at the end of a pier waiting for a boat,” Natalie explained. “The water looked horrendous, it was really choppy.
“We were just sitting there chatting, when all of a sudden we heard a cry for help.
“My daughter thought she saw a child’s head rushing past in the water, so James and I ran to the side.
“He pulled open a container with a life ring inside and chucked it to her but it completely missed her.”
Quick-thinking Natalie, who is only five foot one, and was wearing a blonde wig, false lashes and had a full face of make up for the photoshoot, ran to another life ring to save the drowning girl.
She said: “I went to toss it at her and I realised it was not going to go near her.
“So I jumped over the side of the pier, grabbed on to the side and dangled myself down until my feet were on this chain, hanging into the water.
“I managed to get my arm round a wire rope around the top.
“I hung on to that and got her to grab on to the actual life ring.
According to Natalie, the drowning girl, believed to be in her twenties, was “clearly struggling” and had turned a “dreadful colour” and was coughing and spluttering as the harsh current tried to pull her under the pier.
Natalie said: “She managed to hook her arm around the chain I was standing on, so I grabbed her by her top.
“I was in a really dreadful position – I still don’t know how I did it.
“I had to lean in further and I thought ‘If I let go, I’m in there too’.”
By this point, former nurse Natalie, who now works as a children’s therapeutic support worker, had lost the feeling in her hands, but the girl had let go of the rope – so Natalie ended up holding on to the girl by just her top.
She said: “I needed to get hold of her bra strap because if her head came out the top, she was going to go.
“But I still had hold of her top and thank God, just at that moment the RNLI turned up.
“She’d completely let go, so what we had was me hanging on to the pier, my hand round her top and bra strap, dangling in a horrendous position.
“The RNLI reached right forward and grabbed her.
“Apparently she was unconscious when they hauled her into the boat.
“I don’t know how I managed to hold on, but it feels like I’ve been to the gym and done three rounds with Mike Tyson.”
The woman was taken to hospital by ambulance.
Steve King, lifeboat helmsman at Tower RNLI lifeboat station, described what Natalie did as “a risky, but utterly selfless and incredible act of public service”.
“The woman in the river was vulnerable and me and my fellow lifeboat crew members feel Natalie’s brave actions may well have saved that woman’s life,” he added.
There’s no denying what she did was utterly selfless, an incredible act of public service. STEVE KING, RNLI LIFEBOAT HELMSMAN