Firefighters pulled a woman to safety from Canada Water Dock in a dramatic rescue on Saturday night (September 3) – with the help of the local fishing club.
Colin Clay, the chairman of the Surrey Docks Angling Club, was walking home from his usual rounds of clearing up the local waterways after 10pm on Saturday evening when he noticed a commotion by the dock, which is next to Canada Water Tube station.
Firefighters from three nearby fire stations, as well as two more from south-west London and north London, were on the scene, trying to pull a woman from the water. Two of the firefighters were in the water with her. There has been no confirmation of how the woman ended up in the dock.
The surface of the water can seem warm, especially in good weather, but the dock is deep. A few feet underneath the surface the water rarely heats up – meaning anyone enticed in can suffer a dangerous drop in body temperature.
“I’ve got a couple of new members in the club, and my first thought was there was an accident with one of them, but that wasn’t the case,” Colin said. He got closer and realised he could help the firefighters with the woman.
Colin took one of the firefighters round to get the boat the fishing club uses to clear up debris on the water. Using this boat he and the emergency services were eventually able to haul the woman out of the water. The whole gruelling episode took more than an hour and a half.
A man, who is thought to be the woman’s boyfriend, had already been rescued by the time Colin arrived and was treated by ambulance crews. The woman was taken to hospital.
“It was a fairly stressful couple of hours,” Colin said. “I don’t feel like I saved this girl at all. I just happened to have the boat.”
About eight members of the angling club were also at the scene and helped the emergency services however they could.
“We did well in a stressful situation,” Colin said. “We did whatever we could to help – people just mucked in. They did it without even being asked. It was obviously not a good situation, but the response was good.
“I didn’t pay much attention to anything else that was going on. I didn’t think about it much until yesterday afternoon when I saw some of the videos people filmed.
“I didn’t even realise at the time how serious it was,” he said. “It could have gone completely the other way.”
He was full of praise for the firefighters who led the rescue. “They really did a fantastic job,” he said.
This is the second time this summer that the angling club has helped save people who had fallen into the dock, he added. He asked people to be aware of the dangers of swimming in the water.
A spokesperson for the London Fire Brigade said: “Firefighters rescued two people from the water at Canada Water on Surrey Quays Road in Southwark on Saturday.
“A fire rescue unit crew brought one woman to dry land. She was taken to hospital by London Ambulance Service (LAS) crews.
“Firefighters also assisted a man to safety from the water…
“The Brigade was called at 2201 and the incident was over for firefighters by 2340. Three fire engines from Dockhead, Old Kent Road and New Cross fire stations and two fire rescue units from Battersea and Edmonton fire stations were at the scene.”
A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “We were called at 10:07pm on 3 September to reports of an incident on Surrey Quays Road, Canada Water.
“We sent a number of resources to the scene including an ambulance crew, our hazardous area response teams (HART), a medic in a car and an incident response officer.
“We treated a woman at the scene and took her to hospital. We assessed a second person, a man, but he was not taken to hospital.”