{"id":16514,"date":"2026-01-28T00:55:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T23:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=16514"},"modified":"2026-01-28T10:36:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T09:36:58","slug":"16514","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=16514","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Bravery and Ongoing Service at St Athan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ARTICLES of GENERAL INTEREST<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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A TALE OF BRAVERY AND ONGOING SERVICE AT ST ATHAN <\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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As one of 10 HM Coastguard bases strategically located around the UK, St Athan provides vital life-saving support to fishing and other marine industries. The base also responds to a wide variety of land-based incidents including mountain rescue, missing persons and medical emergencies. <\/strong><\/p>\n

St Athan was one of the purpose-built sites created and operated by the Bristow company, which took responsibility for the UK SAR helicopter service in 2015. The value of the service has never been in doubt. It took less than two years to complete the first 500 missions! This was a significant achievement for St Athan\u2019s team of pilots and specialist winchman paramedics, winch operators, engineers and support staff. The base uses a state of the art Augusta Westland 139 helicopter, equipped with the latest search and rescue technology including night vision, mission management and increasingly sophisticated onboard medical capabilities.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s \u2018patch\u2019 is a 200 Nautical Mile circle around St Athan supporting sister bases around the country. Helicopters from the base have responded to emergency calls from Newcastle in the north-east to French coastal waters in the south and included missions at Worm’s Head on Gower, Fishguard in Pembrokeshire and Woolacombe Beach in Devon. The call-outs vary tremendously. Moving at speeds of roughly 160mph, enabled the crew to speedily get to Weston-Super-Mare (in seven minutes) to answer a call of a man stuck in mud, to a horse rider who fell in West Wales and someone who had fallen at Cheddar Gorge, Somerset.<\/p>\n

\"\"Investiture of SGT Anthony Russell at Windsor Castle.<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Some readers will know Tony Russell who lives in Wenvoe. His inspirational story provides an insight into the skill, bravery and professionalism required in helicopter search and rescue. There was no better illustration than the brilliant rescue carried out by Tony and the crew of \u2018Rescue 193\u2019 on 7th July 2011. In recognition of their bravery and achievement that night, the helicopter team were honoured with several awards, notably the Edward and Maisie Lewis Award and The Prince Philip Helicopter Rescue Award. Tony\u2019s extraordinary personal efforts were recognised with the award of the prestigious Billy Deacon SAR Memorial Trophy. A particularly proud moment came when he was further honoured by Her Majesty Elizabeth II who presented him with the George Medal! The brief summary below shows how well deserved these accolades were.<\/p>\n

SGT Anthony Russell\u2019s role that night was as a winchman in a Royal Navy Sea King helicopter scrambled from Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) Culdrose, Cornwall. Tony\u2019s bravery was key in saving the lives of two yachtsmen from the \u2018Andriette\u2019 foundering in heavy seas and high winds, 80 miles offshore, south-east of the Isles of Scilly. With time of the essence, Tony volunteered to conduct a conventional and extremely hazardous rescue. Winched down in complete darkness, immediately engulfed in waves and losing communications, he hauled himself into the life raft and secured the first survivor with a strop to be lifted up to the safety of the helicopter. Briefly dragged back under the water, Tony was quickly winched up to the relative safety of the helicopter. The life raft then capsized and the remaining survivor was lost from sight. With little regard for his own safety, he winched back down despite the buffering waves, swam to the inverted life raft, diving under it and surfacing in an air pocket. Losing sight of him, the helicopter crew decided to attempt to winch him using the winch wire, which caused the life raft to flip over, fortuitously with the survivor alive inside. Tony, entangled in ropes, managed to cut himself free, swim back to the survivor, place him in a strop and complete the rescue.<\/p>\n

Tony and the team were the last hope for the yachtsmen, but their courage and professionalism shone through, just as it does among the crews at St Athan and other bases today. When recounting his daredevil rescue, Tony said: \u2018It was an extremely difficult and tense rescue. The whole crew onboard the helicopter worked well as a team in what was technically an extremely difficult rescue.\u2019<\/p>\n

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ARTICLES of GENERAL INTEREST A TALE OF BRAVERY AND ONGOING SERVICE AT ST ATHAN As one of 10 HM Coastguard bases strategically located around the UK, St Athan provides vital life-saving support to fishing and other marine industries. The base also responds to a wide variety of land-based incidents including mountain rescue, missing persons and medical emergencies. St Athan was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[334,430],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6cWjO-16514","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5593,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=5593","url_meta":{"origin":16514,"position":0},"title":"The Reassuring Sight of Wales Air Ambulance","author":"Alan Williams","date":"3rd March 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 As the crow flies Wenvoe is directly in between Cardiff and RAF St Athan which is the reason the South Wales Police helicopter can be seen often overflying our village. 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