Kirsty Dunstan and then stepmother Karren Greenhalgh were rescued by the Redcar RNLI lifeboat at Marske in August 2009
A teenager has thanked the RNLI crew who saved her life by donating money raised on her 18th birthday.
Kirsty Dunstan was 13 years old when she was carried out to sea in a toy inflatable dinghy while playing in the sea at Marske with her then stepmother, Karren Greenhalgh, in August 2009.
The two were found by the crew of the Redcar RNLI lifeboat half a mile offshore at Marske. Kirsty needed treatment for hypothermia at James Cook University Hospital.
Now, nearly five years on, Kirsty has held a party to celebrate her 18th birthday and at the party she held a raffle to raise funds for the Redcar RNLI station.
The raffle raised £460, half of which has been donated to the lifeboat station, the other half being donated to the neonatal unit at a local hospital.
While visiting the lifeboat station to hand over her donation, Kirsty said: “I wanted to raise some money for the lifeboat crew who saved my life.
“When I had my birthday party I organised a raffle, and I was really please when I found out we’d raised so much money.”
Her then stepmum Karren explained how the pair had drifted so far out.
She said at the time to the Gazette: “It was a gorgeous day. The water looked lovely so we went out on the dinghy. It looked like we were in safe water. We realised we were drifting out so we started paddling.
“But the current was pulling us and it just felt like we weren’t getting anywhere. Kirsty got into the water to try to pull it back but we weren’t getting anywhere so I told her to get back in.
“But she had let go of the rope and the dinghy kept drifting away. She had been in the water about 20 minutes by this point and she was exhausted.
“I saw her start going under and she was going blue so I jumped in and managed to get her into the dinghy.
“I started trying to swim and pull it but we were far out and I could feel the tide was changing and it was getting harder to do.
She said: “We could have died. I was exhausted and it was frightening.”
After being rescued, both were taken to Redcar lifeboat station before they were transferred to James Cook University Hospital.
Kirsty was suffering from hypothermia and needed a chest X-ray after swallowing sea water, while Karren was exhausted and in shock.
Kirsty presented her money to Dave Cammish, lifeboat operations manager at Redcar.
Dave said: “We sometimes receive donations from older people who reach a certain age and decide to donate money to the RNLI instead of having a party or in lieu of receiving presents.
“But this is the first time anyone as young as Kirsty has thought to be so generous at the age of 18.
“We are very grateful for her generosity, and we’ve asked her to thank everyone who chipped in at her party.”
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