Lifesaver in command of the Island’s waters

Inside the ‘ops room’, as he calls it, there are myriad screens which display all manner of telemetry to help Mr Fitzgerald and his team monitor 840 square miles of the Island’s waters.

It is from this central hub that Mr Fitzgerald performs his role as the Coastguard’s outlying harbours manager.

And as one of the Coastguard’s five duty acting harbourmasters, for one week in every five he has responsibility for co-ordinating search and rescue missions.

‘You never know when the phone will ring. You can be called on Christmas Day, whenever – it doesn’t matter,’ says Mr Fitzgerald (38).

‘Only 45 minutes ago I was getting a phone call saying two people walking across the causeway to Elizabeth Castle looked like they had got trapped as the tide was coming in.

‘We tasked the Fire Service inshore lifeboat to assist them, but the people made it ashore before they were needed.

‘So you can get a call like that and the next minute, a boat could be sinking on the south coast.’

Yesterday the Coastguard moved to reassure all those making use of the seas and shoreline in the coming days that they would continue to provide 24/7 coverage of Jersey’s territorial waters despite the resignation of all 25 members of the St Helier lifeboat station. The crew walked out in protest over the dismissal of the base’s coxswain and the station was declared out of service.

Although the Coastguard declined to comment on the situation, describing it as an ‘internal RNLI matter’, it said its coverage of Island waters would be unaffected. It also urged people due to go out on the water or make use of the coastline to do so safely.

Mr Fitzgerald’s job is a varied one that often involves him co-ordinating with other agencies, including the RNLI. Just last weekend he helped to co-ordinate a major operation to rescue a 59-year-old woman, who had fallen off the cliff at Grosnez.

The woman plummeted 100 ft, hit a grass strip and tumbled a further 100 ft before she became trapped in a gap in boulders partially submerged by the rising tide.

Jersey Coastguard sent out the St Catherine inshore lifeboat and the St Helier all-weather lifeboat to help, and they contacted the French coastguard to deploy its search helicopter. Fire, ambulance and police services also attended.

Mr Fitzgerald, who helped to oversee proceedings from the top of the cliff, said: ‘Initially it wasn’t known if the woman was somewhere down the cliff face or in the water, so my guys in the ops room telephoned the French coastguard and requested a helicopter, which came from Granville.

‘Instead of tasking an air search, I asked the French coastguard via the ops room to send a helicopter with a winch, and we let air traffic control know we had sent for a helicopter from France, in case they needed to change any aircraft routings.’

With the tide rising, rescue workers from the Fire Service helped to prise the woman out from the hole in the boulders.

‘The French helicopter dropped one winchman down to first assess the woman’s condition and then they dropped another down, as well as a stretcher.

‘She was winched into the helicopter, and after liaising with the police, we decided the best place to land the helicopter was the centre of the racecourse at Les Landes, where the woman was met by the Ambulance Service.’

He adds: ‘It was a great feeling because usually it’s a sad outcome when someone has fallen in the way this woman did. There were a lot of thumbs-up among all of us on the clifftop.’

Jersey Coastguard has already responded to 11 emergencies within the first three months of the year. They have ranged from vessels breaking down to medical transfers of critically ill people who needed to be flown to the UK, when airport activity had ceased because of fog.

Last month a patient urgently needed to be flown to Southampton for an operation and a back-up landing site in Jersey – Millbrook playing fields – was waterlogged.

‘I arranged for a helicopter to come from the mainland to collect the patient and we had to close Victoria Avenue so the helicopter could land.’

The helicopter managed to set down between two lampposts on the Avenue, and the patient was transferred to a hospital on the south coast.

‘In those situations you feel the pressure and you want that helicopter to land as soon as possible.’

Mr Fitzgerald, who has two brothers – Mark (41), a police officer in Jersey, and Scott (39), a British Army medic – is a Royal National Lifeboat Institution volunteer in his spare time.

This summer will mark his 20th year with the RNLI, and he can vividly recall the first time he had to recover a dead body from the sea.

‘I was with the St Catherine’s Lifeboat Station crew and we heard over the radio that the Fire Service inshore rescue boat had spotted something. I was tasked with going onto their rescue boat and assisting them with the recovery of the person.

‘The body was floating in the water and there was an ambulance pouch on board the lifeboat which you have to put the body into.’

He admits it was a harrowing experience.

‘Afterwards you get offered help in the form of counselling if it affects you, but I didn’t take it. We talked amongst ourselves as a crew, which was therapeutic, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget any of the incidents where I’ve had to help salvage bodies from the sea.’

Happily, he has helped to save the lives of well over 100 people during his time with the RNLI and the Coastguard.

‘Knowing the downside of the job and of the voluntary work I do, when you are involved in a rescue mission where somebody survives, it is a great feeling. I love helping people.’

His voluntary roles include flying a drone for the Joint Emergency Services’ Aerial Reconnaissance Team.

‘The team is comprised of five fire-fighters and myself, and we all underwent a course with air traffic control to get a drone pilot’s licence for commercial use.

‘The drone has got an optical zoom lens camera and a thermal-imaging camera, and we fly it to scout inaccessible areas for search operations.’

Mr Fitzgerald, who flew radio-controlled helicopters as a child, joined the Sea Cadets at the age of ten and learned how to sail a wide range of vessels.

An Islander who has always felt a deep affection for the sea, he made a wooden dinghy for a design and technology project during his time at Grainville secondary school.

And at the age of 24 in 2003, he put his seamanship skills to the ultimate test after winning a JEP competition to take part in a two-month leg of the round-the-world Clipper Ventures Yacht race, aboard the 60-ft Jersey Clipper.

The Jersey crew won the race and in so doing charted a course into the history books.

‘It was a life-changing experience. I learned so much about myself, and when I returned to Jersey, I worked as a senior sailing instructor for five summers.’

He took part in the leg from Hawaii to Hong Kong on the Clipper and would regularly ascend the boat’s 90-ft mast.

‘I’d go up there to do rig checks. There were no steps, so you had to hug the mast as you went up.’

Something of a daredevil, Mr Fitzgerald has performed a tandem 12,000-ft skydive in the past, in aid of the RNLI.

‘The parachute jump was fantastic. Unless you look at the altimeter on the instructor’s wrist, you don’t realise how fast you are falling.’

It is not just ships and seaplanes that are filling his horizons – fatherhood is coming into view.

His wife Catherine (41), who works in Jersey Post’s philatelic bureau, is expecting their first child in August.

Mr Fitzgerald, who has an advanced engineering qualification from Highlands College and worked as a self-employed electrician before he joined the Coastguard in 2008, says they cannot wait to put their own stamp on parenthood.

He adds: ‘We’re over the moon about it.’

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