Littlehampton life savers compete in Sussex mixed team competitions for the first time

Four teams were competing in six events at Windlesham House School and the club finished second in the seniors, third in the juniors.David Slade, chairman, said: "The most telling was the simulated emergency. On this occasion, the four member teams were each faced in turn with an unknown incident as they arrived poolside.

"They had 90 seconds to deal with five people in the water in various stages of difficulty, as well as an injured person poolside and a manikin simulating an unconscious, not-breathing casualty.

"This being the most important life saving event, the marks are loaded and this turned out to be significant as in the event of tied points, the incident mark took precedence."

The competition started with March Post, which was marked for turnout and co-ordination. This and other events were all hard fought, with some very close finishes making for an exciting afternoon.

The Medley Relay required a 50m freestyle swim followed by 50m with fins, 50m with a rescue tube, and the swimmer then acting as casualty for the fourth, to be towed 50m.

The Manikin Relay required seniors to tow a full water-filled manikin 50m, while the juniors each had a half-filled manikin over 25m.

The Obstacle Relay required Sseniors to swim 50m and juniors 25m, passing under a 0.5m-deep suspended gate on each length.

Lastly, the teams contested a Line Throw Rescue Relay, with seniors throwing and pulling in over 12.5m while the juniors event was over 10m.

Life guard for the afternoon was Great Britain record holder Martin Schofield, who is due to fly out to South Africa later this year for the Commonwealth competition.

David said: "Martin is the record holder for the 12.5 line event and he provided a demonstration and tutorial for all the competitors. From a standing start, coil up, throw out, pull casualty in, it was 7.2 seconds on the day, just a little short of his national record! Fancy a go at that? If so, go to www.lwlsc.co.uk for Wave Club details."

Littlehampton Wave also recently joined Horsham Life Saving Club at Horsham Football Club for the annual presentation evening, where awards were presented by Debbie Hunt, president of the Royal Life Saving Society UK. Littlehampton mayor Jill Long was there, too, to present cups, medals and certificates for outreach activities.