Paramedics treat five people after yacht runs aground on Hartlepool rocks

The incident took place near Newburn Bridge, in Hartlepool, on Saturday, May 11, at around 5.20pm after the 30ft-long yacht suffered engine failure.

Hartlepool Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) volunteers were paged by Humber Coastguard to assist and dispatched both their inshore and all-weather lifeboat at 5.38pm. 

A RNLI statement said: “In the meantime the five people aboard had been able to make their own way to the shoreline where the local Coastguard team and paramedics dealt with them.”

The RNLI added that “sea conditions were described as rough with a force six easterly-south easterly wind”. 

Hartlepool RNLI inshore lifeboat helm Matt Blanchard said: “With the occupants of the yacht safely ashore and the yacht partially submerged and not recoverable the lifeboats returned to the Ferry Road lifeboat station.

"Always check the weather forecast and sea conditions before you set off and be prepared to change your plans or cancel the trip if the forecast is unfavourable.”

A spokesperson for the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) said on Sunday: “We were called at 17.43 yesterday (Saturday, 11 May) to a vessel that had run aground at Hartlepool. “We dispatched a clinical team leader, one crew from our Hazardous Area Response Team and a double crewed ambulance.

"Five patients were treated and discharged at the scene.”