The dinghy was right beside me and then it was swept away. It was terrifying
– Laura Gallagher
A day at the beach turned into a dramatic rescue mission for the Gallagher family, after the children’s dinghy was swept out to sea.
One minute mum Laura was watching her four-year-old son Jamie and family friend Findlay splashing around near the shore in an inflatable boat.
The next, it was carried by the wind into deep water, leaving the boys fearing for their lives. Now, Laura, 31, from Dunbar is warning of the dangers of inflatables at the beach in the hope that other families don’t experience similar trauma.
The pharmacy manager said: “It happened in an instant. The boys were right at my feet, then I looked up and the boat had been blown away. We are such careful parents but this has really given us a wake-up call. You just never think these things are going to happen.”
The family were enjoying an afternoon at Thorntonloch beach, just 10 minutes from home, when disaster struck last month.
Laura, husband Kern, 34, and their sons Jamie and Nathan, seven, brought along a dinghy from a previous family holiday to Portugal and were playing in the water with their friends Sarah and Robert Keenan and their son Findlay, also seven.
“All three children were in the boat at first. They were playing a metre away from Sarah and me. Then Nathan got out and maybe it was the change in weight but the boat shot off. I swam after the boat. I was sure
I was going to reach them, they were only about two metres away but I couldn’t close the gap. The boys were crying now. Findlay was saying: ‘Am I going to die?’
“They had only been two metres away from me but now they were 50 metres away.
“I was tired from shouting but I had to keep swimming. The boys were terrified.”
Luckily, a guard vessel for a barge doing geotechnical surveys for the Neart na Gaoithe offshore wind farm was in the area. The crew saw what was happening and came to their aid. The RNLI arrived soon after.
Laura added: “It never crossed my mind that something like this could happen so quickly. I am just so grateful to everyone.”