Two young boys were lucky to be alive after they were blown out to sea on inflatable dinghies off the Fife coast.
Forth Coastguard received a call at around 2.30pm on Wednesday reporting that the two children, both of whom are understood to be under the age of 10, had got into difficulty near Leven.
The RNLI’s Kinghorn inshore lifeboat and the Leven coastguard team sprang into action and, although one boy managed to get ashore with his dinghy before the lifeboat arrived, the other was unaccounted for.
After the second dinghy was found empty about half a mile offshore, the missing youngster was spotted treading water a quarter of a mile from where he had apparently fallen into the Firth of Forth.
The lifeboat crew pulled the boy, whom they described as “severely hypothermic and close to drowning,” from the sea and took him ashore to a waiting ambulance.
Forth coastguard watch manager Steve Higgins urged parents and children to take extra care when taking part in activities in the water.
“Although a rope was attached to the small dinghy it was allowed to drift out to sea and once the wind took control of the dinghies their rate of drift out to sea increased dramatically,” he said.
“We’re advising all parents and carers to be very, very careful when allowing their youngsters to play in lilos or dinghies when the weather forecast suggest winds blowing out to sea.”
It is understood that the boys who were dressed in just shorts and T-shirts had been trying to make it back to shore but struggled against the 10 to 12 knot south-westerly wind.
Although they started out close to shore, the boy in the second dinghy ended up drifting some distance eastwards almost a mile away from the coastline at Lower Largo.
The boy who had been in the water for 20 minutes was taken to hospital suffering from shock and exhaustion.
A spokesman for the Kinghorn RNLI station admitted the boys were extremely fortunate to be alive after being seen and reported by lifeguards onshore.