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Christine Bowden from Looe, Cornwall, who saved the lifes of two people as she was able to hear their screams as she was wearing her new hearing aid. 30/06/2015 A profoundly deaf woman saved the lives of two stricken sailors after she heard their desperate cries for help – thanks to new HEARING AIDS she had fitted the day before. See swns story SWHEAR. Christine Bowden, 77, was in her coastal garden when she heard one of the men calling about half a mile out to sea. She alerted her husband Marcus and they grabbed their binoculars and spotted an upturned dinghy in the distance – but no sign of any occupants. But the shouts continued so they raised the alarm and the RNLI scrambled two lifeboats. Emergency services found one man in a life jacket desperately trying to swim back to shore and a second clinging to the hull of the upturned 10ft boat without a life jacket. The first of the two was suffering from hypothermia and close to exhaustion when he was hauled from the water.The second was also rescued and their boat was righted and towed back to the shore at Looe, Cornwall.The lifeboat crew told Christine the men – two middle-aged holidaymakers – probably owed their lives to her and her two new hearing aids.Christine, a retired secretary, said: “They were very lucky as I had just got my hearing aids. “I only picked them up on Friday morning and this all happened on Saturday afternoon.”I was virtually deaf before and had them for less than 24 hours. “If it had happened the day before I may not have heard them – and who knows what would have happened.”

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