Inquest told of efforts to save mother who was trapped in Lowestoft sea defence rocks
Saffron Cole-Nottage was with her daughter walking their dog at the seafront when she fell on February 2 last year
Members of the public battled to try to save a mother who was stuck headfirst in sea defence rocks as the tide was coming in, an inquest has heard.
Saffron Cole-Nottage, 32, of Lowestoft, Suffolk, was with her daughter walking their dog at the seafront in the town when she fell on February 2 last year – and an initial 999 call was made at 7.52pm.
Ian Jones, who had been walking along the seafront, said he was “shocked to see two legs sticking out the water and a young girl was stood nearby just screaming”.
He said he and another man tried to help pull Ms Cole-Nottage free, an inquest in Ipswich was told on Tuesday.
“It felt like around 10 minutes we were pulling the lady’s legs but we just couldn’t pull her with enough force to free her,” he said, in a statement summarised by counsel to the inquest Bridget Dolan KC.
He said that emergency services later arrived and took over the incident.
An earlier hearing was told that the fire service arrived at 8.22pm, but she died at the scene.
Alex Singleton-Dent said he was walking along the seafront at around 8pm when he heard a girl screaming for help.
“I looked over the railings when I saw a girl shouting for help for her mum,” he said.
He said he ran to help and when he shone his phone light on the rocks he “could see two legs sticking out from them”.
“She asked me to help and to pull her out,” said Mr Singleton-Dent.
He said that he worked with another man – Mr Jones – to try to get her free “but we just couldn’t”.
“It felt like we were trying for ages and the emergency services didn’t arrive for hours but my adrenaline was going,” said Mr Singleton Dent, in a statement summarised by Ms Dolan.
“I do know the female became unresponsive and the tide was coming in,” he said.
A child who was at the scene said they “spent around 15 minutes trying to get her (Ms Cole-Nottage) out”.
“I recall the stuck female was screaming and asking for us to get her out,” the child said, in a statement read by Ms Dolan.
“The tide was creeping up but I wasn’t really aware the situation was becoming dangerous.”
The child said it “felt like an eternity waiting for the ambulance to arrive”.
“I can’t help but think if the ambulance arrived a little sooner they might have been able to do something to get the stuck lady out,” the child said.
She said she believed the water had “come up submerging her head under the water”.
Ms Cole-Nottage’s partner, Mike Wheeler, said that she was familiar with walking along the “concrete apron beyond the promenade”, Ms Dolan said.
Mr Wheeler said she would walk her dog there and it was about five minutes from her home.
“When she was younger her dad would take her to the breakwater rocks and go fishing,” he said.
Mr Wheeler, whose statement was summarised by Ms Dolan, said that on the day of her death, Ms Cole-Nottage had gone to the Hatfield Hotel in Lowestoft “for a Sunday roast and a few drinks”.
He said he had been at work at the time.
He said Ms Cole-Nottage later walked to a pub near Claremont Pier, and when she later returned home “although she had been drinking, he recalls she wasn’t slurring her words and was acting normally”, Ms Dolan said.
He said she took their dog for a walk, leaving with one of her children at around 7pm.
“I remember they had been gone for about an hour and I began to worry,” he said.
“I heard a helicopter, I heard the dog barking and my child being brought back towards the house.”
Ms Cole-Nottage’s stepmother, Patricia Cole, said in a statement summarised by Ms Dolan that when Ms Cole-Nottage wanted to take the dog for a walk “Mike had objected because of her being drunk”.
Pathologist Raj Logasundarum said that a level of 271 milligrammes of alcohol per 100ml of blood was recorded for Ms Cole-Nottage.
The legal limit for driving in England is 80 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.
The pathologist said this “would have significantly impaired her cognitive abilities”.
He recorded Ms Cole-Nottage’s medical cause of death as drowning.
In a pen portrait, read by barrister Saba Naqshbandi KC, Ms Cole-Nottage’s family described her as “truly one of a kind”.
They said she was “bubbly, fun and full of life” and “she had the rare ability to light up any room”.
The inquest, due to last two weeks, continues.