12:16 on 24th February
The crew were called to a person in the water at Westminster Bridge. The lifeboat arrived on scene to find that the person had initially been grabbed by a passing former Army commando canoeist, who had heard screams of terror as the man fell into the water and held onto him until the police were on scene and took him onto their boat. The man was quite badly injured with, amongst other things, an open fracture of one arm and a fracture of the other. There was a suggestion that he was trying to take a photograph on the bridge when he fell, but this was not confirmed and he was treated on the police boat as they made their way to Lifeboat Pier. The London Ambulance Service (LAS) arrived on scene and requested back up from the HART team due to the casualty still being on board the police boat. Once they arrived they were concerned enough about the casualty’s condition that they requested the air ambulance, which then landed in Embankment Gardens to transport the man to hospital.
Later the same day at 16:38, the boat was tasked to a 15 year old boy who was unconscious at Embankment Pier. On arrival the crew found the boy slumped against the brow of the pier with his family. He was conscious, but clearly in discomfort. His mother explained that about an hour before he had eaten cashew nuts for the first time. Shortly after he became ill having diarrhoea, sickness, a sore throat that felt constricted and became unresponsive with a rash developing. At this time, he had a cap refill of three and was clammy with a slow breathing rate. Oxygen was administered and he was also given two puffs of salbutamol. He soon started to become more responsive and his cap refill came down to one before LAS arrived on scene to take him to hospital.