A COASTGUARD officer told of his ‘emotional’ mobile phone call to a distressed woman as he saved her from drowning herself.

When Mark Rodaway managed to get through to the 29-year-old woman she was up to her waist in 11°C seawater in the dark and the phone kept cutting out as he tried to find out where she was.

The coastguard commander for Dorset spoke to the vulnerable woman from the Portland Coastguard control room in Weymouth for 20 minutes as he tried to reassure her and talk her round.

He said: “The first time the lady was unable to talk to me but there was water in the background.

“She was very distressed and very cold but I was able to start up a conversation on the second call.

“Every time the phone call went I thought she had gone.”

And Mr Rodaway said he was delighted with the team effort between the coastguards, police and the ambulance service when the woman was rescued by helicopter in freezing conditions off Bourne-mouth beach.

He added: “It was emotional.

“I’m just pleased that hopefully she will get the help she needs and will perhaps look forward to 2011 with a different pair of eyes.

“You can’t help but get involved and you don’t think about it at the time but the phone call conversation was very difficult.

“It was a team effort and it’s never about one person.

“We had a brilliant set of coastguards out in freezing conditions.”

Portland Coastguard was alerted by Dorset Police after the woman’s partner said she was missing from her Ferndown home.

He told officers he had phoned her and she sounded like she was on a beach so the police used mobile phone technology to narrow the search down to an area west of Bournemouth Pier.

The Southbourne Coastguard rescue team was called out and the rescue helicopter from Lee-on-Solent was scrambled.

Mr Rodaway said: “Distressed people need an awful lot of reassuring to make them feel their best interests are being looked after.

He added: “There were chilling moments “But it’s wonderful that there’s a young woman that’s going to be alive for Christmas and without the emergency services that might not have been the case.”

The woman was winched from the sea and taken to an ambulance on the beach last Thursday night.

Watch Manager for Portland Coastguard Jennet Chisholm said: “We worked together with Dorset Police in this incident to locate this lady, who was clearly distressed.

“We are very pleased that the efforts of all concerned have contributed to the saving of this woman’s life.”