A CAMPAIGNING crew battling to save their lifeboat station from closure have rescued a female diver in distress from the sea off the Borders coast.

The St Abbs crew, who are based in the UK’s largest diving area, took just four minutes to launch their lifeboat and within a minute they had pulled the unconscious woman, in her thirties, from the water.

They brought her back to life by giving her oxygen and within minutes she was back at the harbour and handed over to the waiting ambulance before being flown to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

The RNLI announced last month that it intends to shut the station, with cover being provided from nearby Eyemouth, insisting the decision was nothing to do with money.

The dramatic rescue came just 24 hours after about 81 people attended a meeting to oppose the closure plans and more than 3,000 signatures were gathered on a petition calling for a U-turn on the decision.

The RNLI has rejected the claims that lives would be put at risk by the move and said it was about having the “right assets in the right place”.

However, St Abbs station master Alasdair Crowe is adamant that if the diver had had to wait for the Eyemouth crew to arrive she would not have survived, and insisted that the incident strengthened their argument to save the station.

He said: “We were at my mother’s 80th birthday party when a member of the public ran in to say he could see two divers pulling an unconscious diver out of the water on to a rock behind the harbour.

“We were very quickly launched within four minutes and when we got to her she was obviously in a bad state.

"She was about 100 yards from the station in a well-dived, very safe area and the water was flat calm so there were no obvious reasons why this had happened.

“The three divers had become separated and when the two divers surfaced she was floating face-down, so we got her transferred into the boat and on to oxygen right away. She was breathing and we got her ashore and handed her over to the ambulance crew.

“It was a very quick rescue and we were out and back in the blink of an eye. She was alive and breathing when we brought her in.

“If the crew had been coming from Eyemouth she would not have survived because they were on a rock and the tide would have eventually pulled them back into the water before they got there.

“We could see she was critical and it was all over in about six minutes. She was blue when we got her and the colour came back to her when we got her to oxygen. If anything was going to give her a chance it was that.

“If this station had been taken away a few days ago instead of in a couple of months' time, that would have been their first fatality, you can almost guarantee it, and there will be others to follow.

“This is our fifth call-out this year but there are a number of incidents we prevent because we are there. Some of the crew will warn divers about diving in certain areas before they go in the water. We are constantly watching.

“It is what we do here, the nature of the coastline. It is rugged, it’s wild and very tidal and speed is usually what saves lives undoubtedly for us.

“Just to give you an idea how busy it is, the other morning I looked out and there were five dive boats on the headland and they would have 12 divers on each so there were 60 divers under the water at that one time, and they do four trips a day. That’s not counting all of those divers who were in the water behind the harbour.”

Crowe said the St Abbs crew were “second-to-none” and the majority of them were experienced fishermen and dive boat skippers.

He also said that taking the lifeboat away would have a negative effect on tourism and diving, which boosts the local economy.

Crowe said: “If they take the lifeboat away it will have a knock-on effect on tourism and diving in this area because I’m almost certain that clubs that are training divers will stop coming here, because how can they safely say: 'We are going to take you a very safe place but unfortunately there is not any rescue if something goes wrong'."