Peter Hay has abandoned his kids at the playpark, ditched his wife on a dinner date, and ran out of his best friend’s wedding.
No, he is not a terrible person.
These are just some of the times he has been called to an emergency on the water as an RNLI Broughty Ferry crewman over the past 35 years.
Peter was named coxswain – the lead crew member who helms the boat – at the branch last year.
He was an operations manager at Gillies in Broughty Ferry before taking on the full-time position, which is one of two paid roles at the branch
The 54-year-old, who is the station’s longest serving member, has attended more than 500 rescues and saved 16 lives since records began in 1994.
Although his role has often come at the expense of quality time with his family, he says his wife Allison and two sons, 16 and 20, couldn’t be more supportive.
Peter, who lives in Monifieth, said: “All of them are supportive of what I do and presumably quietly proud.
“However, it has conflicted heavily with family commitments over the years.
“Many a time have I abandoned them at various points.
“My wife says I was paged when we were out for a meal, just the two of us.
“Apparently I left her alone in the restaurant.
“It must have been time to pay the bill!”
He added: “I was also paged one Hogmanay when we were at a party at a rugby club.
“When I eventually made it back to the party, the wife was drunk and on first name terms with the full rugby team.”
‘Rewarding’ moment Peter saved life of sailor in the Tay
One particularly “rewarding” incident, Peter says, was the rescue of a Dundee woman who was swept away by the tide when her boat capsized in the Tay.
Experienced sailors Jess Probst and her father Andy were enjoying an afternoon of sailing last summer when the incident took place.
But disaster struck when their catamaran overturned shortly after 5pm and Jess, 40, was pulled away by the strong tide.
As she drifted further away, Andy was forced to leave his daughter and direct the damaged boat back to the nearest harbour at Newport in order to raise the alarm.
Both the Coastguard and the Broughty Ferry lifeboat crew were immediately scrambled but were facing a vast expanse of the the Tay in which to search.
Thankfully, after a terrifying 90-minute ordeal for Jess, who had to muster all her strength to stay afloat, Peter and his crew found and rescued her.
Peter, who was a sailor in his youth, says the incident struck a chord with him.
He said: “I became a lifeboat volunteer because I sail and last year we saved the life of a sailor in the River Tay and she was incredibly grateful.
“She had an accident while sailing and we were credited with saving her life, which was quite rewarding.”
The Broughty Ferry station was credited with saving eight lives last year alone.
But Peter says it is the unsuccessful rescue missions which keep him up at night.
Unsuccessful rescues ‘stick with me the most’
Peter said: “We dealt with a fatality on Christmas Day last year and I can think of two occasions this year that we didn’t find a casualty quickly enough.
“Sadly these turned into recovery operations.
“These are sadly the calls that stick with me, always questioning what we could have done differently.
“Could we have responded quicker and with more accurate information?
“And crucially, what may have prevented these people getting into the situation they were in that ultimately cost them their life?”
He says his focus is on reducing the number of fatalities. “We saved eight people last year, but we really should be focused on the people we didn’t save.
“It is important that we focus on how we could minimise that number.”
Meeting families of people who die by suicide
Unfortunately, Peter estimates around 30% of calls received by the RNLI are mental-health related.
He said: “We often talk about making sure that we are able to bring the casualty home regardless of their outcome.
“It is important that we still find the casualty and still recover them back to the family.
“We often meet families of people that we don’t save.
“There is many a times we have sat with a family at the lifeboat station or at a place where somebody has lost their life and chatted about circumstances, what we’ve done and tried to be supportive of them.
“It helps them to get closure and it probably helps us to as well.”
Around 60 people volunteer for the Broughty Ferry station, which is Scotland’s busiest station.
Having navigated difficult and tragic events together, the team has bonded and built strong relationships with one another.
Peter said: “We are like a big family.
“We fight like cat and dog, but when the pagers go –Â we are all on the same page.”
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