A mother who spent approximately 90 minutes clinging to an overturned paddleboard after being carried two miles from shore has been reunited with the volunteer lifeboat crew who pulled her from the water.
Mandy Galloway, 45, was paddleboarding with her partner near Kingsbarns on the Fife coast in July 2023 when weather conditions deteriorated rapidly, dragging them both towards open sea.
While her partner succeeded in reaching the beach, Ms Galloway found herself unable to fight against the current despite her efforts.
More than two years on, she has returned to Anstruther lifeboat station to personally express her gratitude to the RNLI volunteers responsible for her survival.
“They are heroes,” Ms Galloway said. “Without them, I wouldn’t be here.”
The couple had been enjoying their time on the water when the wind suddenly intensified, catching them off guard.
Ms Galloway’s partner called out for her to paddle back towards land, but she quickly realised she lacked the strength to make any headway against the conditions.
“I was panicking. I was really panicking and really crying,” she recalled. “I’d got myself in such a state screaming to him not to leave me.”
Mandy Galloway was reunited volunteer lifeboat crew that saved her life
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Recognising she could not fight the current, she abandoned her attempts to paddle and concentrated solely on remaining aboard her board.
However, a wave struck and sent her tumbling into the sea, flipping the paddleboard upside down.
She was left wearing only a swimming costume, T-shirt and Crocs, desperately gripping the board’s fin as conditions worsened around her.
As the minutes passed, the cold began to take hold of her body with alarming speed.
Ms Galloway thought she was going to die before the life crew got to her
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“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.
The numbness spread upwards and her grip on the fin grew increasingly weak as hypothermia set in.
Ms Galloway reached a point where she thought she would die.
“I would say, probably before the life crew got to me, I was minutes away from just letting go, minutes,” she said. “In that instant, I had just kind of accepted that I was going to die there.”
“I thought, right, well, my kids have not got a mum now, that’s it.”
Once the alarm was raised, two lifeboats launched from Anstruther station and headed for the area where Ms Galloway had last been seen.
The search proved exceptionally challenging due to rough seas, the white underside of her paddleboard blending with the waves, and her blue clothing offering little contrast against the water.
Scott Brown, one of three crew members aboard the smaller inshore vessel, described the mounting concern as initial sweeps yielded nothing.
“At that point, we’re really concerned all three of us were worried that, basically we’re looking for a needle in a haystack,” he said.
The crew drew on their knowledge of local tides and wind patterns to extend the search area.
Fellow crew member Louis McNaught eventually spotted the paddleboard cresting a wave in the distance.
Mr Brown said their relief at locating Ms Galloway quickly turned to alarm upon seeing her condition after roughly 90 minutes in the water.
“She was extremely hypothermic, really weak, and she just looked like someone who didn’t have long left,” he said.
The crew pulled Ms Galloway from the water and she received immediate treatment, including care from a doctor aboard the larger all-weather lifeboat, before being transported to hospital upon reaching shore. She was discharged several hours later.
Ms Galloway said her overwhelming feeling upon knowing she was safe was simply wanting to return home to the children she had feared 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.
Since the rescue, she has welcomed three grandchildren into her life.
Ms Galloway shared her story to support the RNLI’s Mayday appeal, which includes the Mayday Mile challenge encouraging participants to complete a mile daily throughout May to raise funds for the charity’s lifesaving operations.
Recent figures show RNLI lifeboats launched 9,058 times across the UK in 2025, saving 272 lives.