Man and woman who had been fishing cling for their lives after being swept away during stormy weather
A pair of fishers were caught short and left clinging to a harbour wall for their lives after being swept away by huge waves.
The dramatic moments following a rogue wave hitting the breakwater were caught on camera by a passer-by.
An eyewitness told Yorkshire Live that the pair had been fishing at Staithes Harbour in Saltburn-by-the-Sea when they were suddenly pulled into the water.
The witness said the sea had been ‘pretty rough’ all of Sunday afternoon leading up to the incident.
At around 4pm one particularly high wave broke over the harbour wall and washed the pair over the edge.
The woman was left scrambling to try and get a grip on the side while the man clung to her in a bid to stay alive.
The witness said: ‘I noticed these two fishing on the top of the rocks. The next minute a big wave came over and I thought, they had been washed off.
‘They have disappeared.
‘And I can see they have been washed off into the sea in the harbour.
‘How they were knocked out I don’t know, they must have been thrown. They didn’t hit the rails. They ended up in the sea.
‘I don’t know how they managed to get back to the harbour. And the girl is clinging on to the rails, and hanging on by her fingertips, and the guy is holding on to her.’
They said the female was left hanging on to the edge of the harbour ledge ‘by her fingertips’ with the male holding on to her to avoid being swept away.
The pair managed to claw their way back to safety and were taken to a nearby RNLI station for treatment.
The eyewitness said: ‘You got to be careful.
‘The sea is not very forgiving, these two are lucky.
‘It’s one of those things, if they had been thrown a few more feet they wouldn’t be here now cause the sea was really rough – it was the peak of high tide.’
Storm Babet caused widespread flooding up and down the UK earlier this month.
And the country is braced for more bad weather as Storm Ciaran – the third named storm of the year – is due to arrive this week.
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