How Tynemouth surfer brothers survived rip current terror

On Saturday 17 May, two brothers got caught in a terrifying rip current at a popular surfing beach in north-east England. They hope sharing their experience will save lives.

It was a great day for a surf, with 5ft-high swells sweeping along the shore at Tynemouth.

Euan, 21, and Andrew, 19, were among the dozens dotting the breaking blue waves at Longsands that lunchtime.

When they rented their boards from a hire centre at the beach, the pair from Gateshead were advised of the safest spots to surf.

But, unwittingly, they were being blown by a northerly wind towards a rip current, a permanent fixture beside the lido at the southern end of the mile-long beach.

By the time they realised, it was too late.

Andrew was the first to get caught, he had stayed out on the water while his brother went ashore to get a different surfboard.

“I did not really know what was going on,” Andrew says. “I was going full pelt and not getting anywhere.”

When Euan returned, he instantly saw his younger brother was in trouble and went out to try and help him, getting himself caught in the current.

“It was like trying to swim on a treadmill,” Euan recalls.

No matter how hard he swam, he found himself and his brother being pulled out to sea by the current.

Both quickly realised how serious their situation was, and it became even more perilous when they began to get separated.

While each was struggling to keep themselves afloat, they also had the added fear of not knowing what was happening to the other, as they disappeared from each other’s view.

Their first urge was to panic and swim as hard as they could to get out of their predicament.

“I could hear myself panicking but I just knew that would not help me,” Euan says.

He called at his brother to “just chill”, which they laugh about now.

But staying calm became key to their survival, the pair remembering the lessons taught to them by their father years before at their local swimming pool.

Stay calm and float on your back, conserve energy.

Andrew was being bombarded by the breaking waves, tumbling in the tumultuous North Sea.

Luckily, he was thrust close to the rocks, which he was able to make a quick burst for and haul himself up on to.

But Euan was too far away and being pulled further out to sea.

He had seen his brother get out to safety, flooding him with relief, his attention now turning solely to his own predicament.

“I was completely helpless,” Euan recalls. “I was just very aware no matter how hard or long I swam there was no chance of me fighting this.”

Neither really knows how long the ordeal lasted or how far they travelled, but it felt like a long time and a long distance.

They both say they had “pretty scary” and “dark” thoughts during their struggle, principally about what had happened to the other.

Several members of the public, including a 10-year-old boy, saw what was happening and called for help.

The RNLI Cullercoats team was paged at 12:09 BST, and 11 minutes later four crew members were aboard their boat Daddy’s Girl, bursting out into Cullercoats bay and down the coast.

Two minutes later they found Euan.

He struggles to describe the relief he felt seeing the bright orange boat bearing down on him.

“That was a great feeling,” he says.

He was hauled over the inflatable side and taken back to the Cullercoats lifeboat station to be checked over and treated with a bag of gummy sweets.

He had not realised how cold he was until the paramedics started to look him over.

The station’s operations manager drove him back to Tynemouth for a reunion with his brother.

“We gave each other a big hug,” Euan says.

Andrew, who was already out of his wetsuit and into his clothes, recalled the relief he felt at seeing his brother tempered by the soggy embrace from Euan’s wetsuit.

The pair drove home in a daze, Andrew putting I Will Survive on the car’s radio.

“We were in shock,” Euan says.

Andrew agrees: “I do not think either of us processed what we had been through.”

The rip current that caught them is a near permanent feature of Longsands, caused by the North Sea surging past the 1920s-built concrete lido.

It is, according to the RNLI, “topographically constrained”, while other rip currents can also regularly form along the beach.

Rip currents can reach speeds of 5mph and pull anyone caught in them out to sea.

They can be difficult to spot but are “sometimes identified by a channel of churning, choppy water on the sea’s surface”, the RNLI says.

Rip currents are the number one source for lifeguard call-outs, Geoff Cowan, the RNLI Cullercoats safety advisor says.

Geoff is full of praise for the brothers, first for their actions in the moment and secondly for speaking out about it afterwards in a bid to boost awareness of the perils of rip currents and what to do if caught in one.

Advice if caught includes to not try and swim against the current, but rather try and head parallel to the shore until free from its grip.

The brothers had several things in their favour, Geoff says, including being young and fit and, crucially, they were wearing wetsuits, which provided invaluable buoyancy aid.

They also followed the Float to Live protocols, advice issued by the RNLI to prevent drowning.

“We want people to enjoy the water but be mindful of what can go wrong and what to do if it does,” Geoff says.

Additional advice includes carrying a phone in a waterproof pouch and using the SafeTtrx app, which would quickly enable the RNLI to locate those in trouble.

Pressing the side button on a mobile phone five times will also start a 999 call, Geoff says.

The brothers are yet to return to the sea, but they have been to the Cullercoats station with their family to thank those who came to their aid.

“We are really pleased to see them both,” Geoff says.