Mother reunited with lifeboat ‘heroes’ who rescued her after paddleboard ordeal

A mother who was swept two miles out to sea while clinging to an upturned paddleboard has had an emotional reunion with some of the lifeboat “heroes” who saved her life.

Mandy Galloway, 45, had been paddleboarding with her partner off Kingsbarns in Fife in July 2023 when the wind suddenly picked up and the pair found themselves being dragged out to sea.

Her partner managed to paddle back to shore and shouted to her to do the same, but Ms Galloway said despite her best efforts she just was not strong enough.

“I was panicking. I was really panicking and really crying,” she said.

“I’d got myself in such a state screaming to him not to leave me.”

Eventually she decided to stop paddling and just focus on staying on the board – only to be hit by a wave that knocked her into the sea and flipped the board upside down.

This left her in the water in just a swimming costume, a T-shirt and a pair of Crocs, clinging to the her board’s “fin” for dear life amid worsening sea conditions.

“I started to get colder and colder, I couldn’t feel my legs, I couldn’t feel my body, my whole body that was in the water, I couldn’t feel that,” she said.

“But my upper body was starting to get cold as well, so the hand that was holding onto the fin – that was really starting to lose grip.

“I would say, probably before the life crew got to me, I was minutes away from just letting go, minutes.

“In that instant, I had just kind of accepted that I was going to die there.”

She added: “I thought, right, well, my kids have not got a mum now, that’s it.”

Once the alarm was raised two RNLI lifeboats were launched from Anstruther lifeboat station and raced to the area she was last seen.

However the search was made difficult by the choppy conditions, and the fact the underside of Ms Galloway’s paddleboard was white, and that she was dressed in blue clothing.

Scott Brown, who was one of three crew on board the smaller inshore lifeboat, said: “At the end of the search was still no casualty. So that’s when we then went to local knowledge.

“We knew which way the tide was going, the wind, and we extended the search.

“At that point, we’re really concerned – all three of us were worried that, basically we’re looking for needle in a haystack.

“Thankfully, (fellow crew member) Louis McNaught spotted the paddleboard in the distance after it crested a wave, and then we found Mandy.”

He said the crew’s relief at finding her turned to “almost panic” when they saw the state she was in after about 90 minutes in the water.

“She was really bad. We needed to get her out that water quick,” Mr Brown said.

“She was extremely hypothermic, really weak, and she just looked like someone who didn’t have long left. She just didn’t look in a good way at all.”

After being pulled from the water Ms Galloway received treatment from the crew – including from a doctor on board the larger all-weather lifeboat – and was taken to hospital on reaching shore.

She was released a few hours later.

Ms Galloway said when she knew she was safe she just wanted to go home to see the children she thought she would never see again.

“I just felt so grateful, so grateful. My kids are like my world, so that just meant everything to me,” she said.

“And since then, I’ve got three grandkids that I would never have got to see, and I’ve waited for that for so long, to have grandkids, so that I’m grateful for as well.”

More than two years later, Ms Galloway returned to Anstruther lifeboat station to meet some of the RNLI volunteers who rescued her, and thank them personally for saving her life.

“It’s amazing to see them,” she said. “They are heroes.

“They’re heroes in a lot of people’s eyes, and they’re definitely in mine and my family.

“Without them, I wouldn’t be here.

“So everybody’s grateful for what they do, and for the voluntary job that they do.

“I can’t ask enough for people to donate. It’s an amazing job that they do.”

New stats show RNLI lifeboats launched 9,058 times in the UK in 2025 and saved 272 lives – including 1,172 launches in Scotland.

Ms Galloway was sharing her story ahead of the RNLI’s Mayday appeal, which including the Mayday Mile challenge, where people complete a mile a day in May to help raise funds to support the RNLI’s lifesaving work.

To find out more about the campaign visit fundraise.rnli.org/event/mayday-mile/home