Herald Magazine - March 11, 2006
Heroes at the end of the line
“Every hour of the day, the Royal Navy Search and Rescue team at Prestwick are ready for action at sea, on the hills and even in the city centre. We join the life-savers as they take to the skies”.
“they are frequently called into Glasgow city centre to fish casualties and dead bodies –often suicides-out of the river Clyde”.
“A map next to the list shows where all the jobs took place. There’s a cluster around the centre of Glasgow representing a spate of suicide attempts from the George 5th Bridge. “We’ve been called out to suicides from that bridge five or six times in the last few months” says Moulton. “The fire brigade and the police aren’t equipped to do anything, so they have to wait for us to get there and winch the casualties out”.
“The red and grey machine is an absolute beast-it looks about 90ft long-and Moulton runs me through some Top Trumps like stats. Cost to buy: £1m. Cost to run: £6-8,000 an hour. Top speed 140 mph depending on which way the wind is blowing”.