A FISHERMAN suffering a severe asthma attack eight miles off the Ceredigion coastline might have died had he not been rushed to shore by New Quay’s threatened lifeboat, it has been claimed.

New Quay’s all-weather Mersey-class lifeboat - which the RNLI plan to replace with a smaller Atlantic 85 inshore boat in 2020 - was launched at around 9am on Thursday morning to help a stricken crew member aboard the Kingfisher.

It is understood that the fisherman had suffered a severe asthma attack due to the extremely cold weather, and required urgent evacuation.

Medical advice relayed by Milford Haven coastguards stressed that the casualty should be kept inside the lifeboat’s wheelhouse in order to keep warm.

Helicopter evacuation was not possible due to the cold weather and the casualty’s condition.

On arrival at New Quay the fisherman - a 23-year-old from Colwyn Bay - was treated by one of the nurses at the town surgery where staff, on discovering he had no means of returning home, paid for his bus fare to the train station and his train fare back to Colwyn Bay.

“If that guy had been taken off by an Atlantic 85, I don’t think he would have made it,” New Quay lifeboat coxswain and local county councillor Dan Potter told the Cambrian News.

“When someone’s suffering a severe asthma attack you cannot just steer into the wind.

“Had he been brought ashore in a rubber rib the cold weather might have killed him. As it was, he was kept in the warm of the wheelhouse where he was given painkillers and oxygen.”

But Cllr Potter expressed concern that the casualty had to be kept in the wheelhouse for two hours until an ambulance arrived.

“There are plans to relocate the local ambulance station to Aberaeron temporarily because the one we have here in New Quay is no longer fit for purpose,” he said.

“But I would fight tooth and nail plans to take the station away from New Quay permanently.

“Think of the footfall we have here during the summer and think of the amount of traffic an ambulance coming from Aberaeron would have to fight through.

“When someone suffers a cardiac arrest the first few minutes are critical so for that reason alone a New Quay ambulance station should be retained.”

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