Two brothers have been hailed heroes after rescuing a drowning woman from Britain’s biggest wave – so deadly it is known as ”The Widowmaker”.
Brave Martin Marney, 41 and brother David, 45, stripped to their boxer shorts to rescue the victim who had paddled into the fearsome ‘Cribbar’.
The UK’s biggest wave and is a 25ft wall of water that hits the coast of Newquay in Cornwall twice a year – for just hours each time.
It is caused by a huge swell in the Atlantic and is so dangerous local surfers call the wave ”The Widowmaker” and the ”Bone Cruncher”.
But Martin and David ignored the perils of the brutal swell to save a woman who had raced into the sea to save her drowning dog.
They saw her floating on her back and grabbed a lifebelt and quickly swam out to her.
The heroic brothers, from Perranporth, Cornwall, than held the woman in the water to stop her drowning.
RNLI lifeboat crews arrived after 25 minutes to haul the three of them out and the woman is now recovering.
Martin said: ”The most frightening part for me was as we were swimming out she was being dragged further out to sea and her head kept going under. We are both just glad that she’s okay.”
The woman was airlifted to hospital suffering from hypothermia while the men were treated for cold by land ambulance at a lifeboat station.
Luckily, her collie dog Ollie made it back to shore on his own following the ordeal on Wednesday.
Gareth Horner, RNLI volunteer lifeboat operations manager at Newquay, said the brothers were “heroes” and deserved the ”fullest praise”.
He added: ”Their swift response coupled with their training ensured they were able to reach the woman quickly and safely provide her with vital support until the lifeboat crew arrived at the scene.”
The Cribbar phenomenon happens just a handful of times every winter between September and April.
It smashed onto Newquay’s Fistral Beach on Wednesday around 1pm amid Britain’s stormy weather.
The Cribbar is actually a short series of waves which have earned the nicknames ‘The Widow Maker’ and ‘The Bone Cruncher’ because of the extreme danger of riding them.
