LIFESAVERS have issued a stark safety warning after a family's frolics ended in the desperate rescue of a small child whose rubber dinghy was swept out to sea.

A 19-year-old friend of the family swam out to bring back the inflatable boat but struggled against the strong offshore breeze.

Rescuers say he was in the water for about an hour and in a bad way' when they got to him.

Both Morecambe's D-class Lifeboat and hovercraft attended the shout' - one of six call-outs over Easter compared with a typical tally of one a week.

Press officer Gill Roberts said it had been a record weekend' for rescues, with 241 alarms across the country.

The teenager and six-year-old girl, who had been staying with her family at Heysham's Ocean Edge Caravan Park, were taken to a waiting ambulance at Half Moon Bay and treated for cold and shock.

Now hovercraft senior commander Harry Roberts has warned of the dangers of using inflatable dinghies in tidal areas pointing out that an offshore breeze and ebbing tide had swept the craft away from shore.

"By the time we got there the lad had been in the water about an hour. The dinghy was about three-quarters of a mile offshore. It was quite a nasty incident," he told the Citizen.

"The girl was very cold and scared. They were picked up by the lifeboat and transferred to hovercraft which could get into shore to the waiting ambulance quicker."

Rescuers also went to the aid of a fisherman cut off by the tide on rock in front of the lifeboat station just after 12.30pm last Thursday the crew travelled the 30-metres from the slipway to recover the angler and his tackle.

On Monday, two local fishermen were found waist-high in water after being cut off by the tide on rocks off the coast at Heysham.

These incidents have led rescuers to repeat warnings for people to check times and heights of the tide before venturing out.

Morecambe Lifeboat also went to the aid of three canoeists in difficulty off the Sunny Slopes at Heysham at 3.20pm Sunday, and to the rescue of a two-man powerboat one mile north of the station after it suffered engine failure on Monday.

April 24, 2003 08:31