A man who was attempting to reach an island off the coast of Edinburgh using an inflatable mattress has been rescued after falling into the sea.<\/p>\n
RNLI Queensferry Lifeboat said he was using the airbed as a craft to reach Cramond Island in the Firth of Forth when he got into difficulty at about 09:20 on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The man, who was not wearing a wetsuit or life jacket, managed to get back on the bed but was dragged off course by currents, so he called 999.<\/p>\n
Cramond Island is a tidal island about one mile (1.6 km) out to sea, which is connected to the mainland at low tide across the Drum Sands.<\/p>\n
A paved path, exposed at low water, allows easy access but this is covered at high tide.<\/p>\n
The man was wearing normal clothes and was not equipped for the icy waters, which were 7C and “extremely cold”, rescuers said.<\/p>\n
The man had set off at 08:00.<\/p>\n
Once on the lifeboat he was wrapped in warm blankets and it was “assessed that an ambulance and rapid evacuation would be required”.<\/p>\n
The lifeboat went to Granton harbour where the rescued man was picked up by the Scottish Ambulance Service crew.<\/p>\n
Stewart Atkinson, of RNLI Queensferry Lifeboat, told BBC Scotland News: “It was lucky that we got there when we did, as the casualty was extremely cold and was drifting further offshore, with the tide and offshore wind.<\/p>\n
“This incident highlights that blow-up toys and airbeds are designed for pools, not the sea where they can quickly be blown offshore.<\/p>\n
“Always check the forecast and tide conditions, be aware that conditions inshore may seem fine, but further offshore they can be significantly worse.<\/p>\n
“Always wear a personal floatation device and make sure you are also wearing clothing suitable for the forecasted weather.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who was attempting to reach an island off the coast of Edinburgh using an inflatable mattress…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-404866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}