Butjadingen: DGzRS saves Wattwanderer at the last minute

A father and two sons were rescued from drowning in the middle of the night from the North Sea. A man had heard calls for help in the mudflats of Butjadingen on Friday night and had alarmed the police, as announced by the German Society for Shipwrecked Rescue (DGZRS). The rescuers moved from the Fedderwardersiel volunteer station with their ship "Hermann Onken" from. A helicopter was also requested.

Shortly after, the rescuers in the spotlight discovered a 39-year-old father, who was up to his neck in the strong tidal current. His two 9 and 15 year old sons held him in his arms. "The rescue was in the last second," said marine rescuers later on the DGzRS home page. The three would not have supported five more minutes in the strong current.

"The panic of the children was indescribable," said the precursor of the lifeboat, Hartmut Dierks. To embark them, he had to carefully maneuver to all three. In cutter Fedderwardersiel's port, the sea rescuers handed the three to the ground rescue service.

The police could not tell first if the father and his sons were tourists. The North Sea was between 20 and 21 degrees during the disaster.

Butjadingen is located on a peninsula between Jade and the Weser Estuary. Before that extends the broad band of the Wadden Sea of ​​Lower Saxony.

The dangers of mudflat migration are still underestimated: water flows at high tide at high speed in the flats and can cut the way back for hikers. According to information provided by the emergency services of DGzRS, there are four to five critical emergency situations of this type each year

However, even professional sailors sometimes take care of the navigation in the little waters. deep. In 2016, rescuers rescued 130 people from a cruise ship that had accumulated in front of Langeoog Island in East Friesland. Most of the pbadengers were children. The 33-meter-long "Flinthörn" pbadenger boat was stranded between Langeoog and the mainland with running water, the DGZRS announced later. According to the information, the ship was on board with several school clbades on the way to the island.

(A history of the German Society for the Salvation of the Shipwrecked of our Department EINESTAGES can be read here.)