A MUM-OF-TWO is lucky to be alive after a kayak accident left her freezing and stranded in the River Weaver.

Fire engines, ambulances, police vehicles, the police helicopter and neighbouring farmers were all mobilised to help after an enjoyable day out turned into a nightmare for Winsford couple Lucy and Nigel Ogden.

Lucy, 42, said: “I’ve never been so scared in my life.

“I honestly thought this was it.”

The couple, both experienced kayakers, were enjoying a trip out on the Weaver on Saturday when disaster struck.

“We go up the river all the time, people know us, they know our green and orange kayaks are always up and down the Weaver,” Lucy said.

“We’d had a brilliant time up to then but then I made a fatal error, luckily I’m still here to tell the tale.”

Shortly before the incident, which happened near Top Flash, in Winsford, at about 2.30pm, the pair had stopped for a break and had a walk through the fields, noticing that the river was running faster than usual.

They decided to continue for a short time before turning back, and it was as they turned that Lucy’s kayak clipped a tree branch in the water and she made the mistake of grabbing it, which capsized the boat.

She said: “I couldn’t right myself, I could only kick myself out of the kayak.

“That went down the river and I was left clinging to the branch.”

The current had trapped Lucy and meant that Nigel, 51, was unable to help.

“It was a nightmare,” he said.

“I honestly thought I had lost my other half.

“I made a commitment in my head that if she slips and goes in I’m going in after her.”

He called the emergency services but knew they would struggle to find them.

They were in a remote location with a number of boggy, muddy fields between them and the nearest roads.

Nigel, a surveyor for United Utilities, used the flashlight on his helmet to pinpoint their location to the police helicopter and also called his friend and neighbouring farmer Bill Hall, from Weaver Hall Farm, who helped firefighters get to the stranded couple.

Bill said: “Two fire engines, two ambulances and four police cars all turned up in my yard but it was still half a mile across fields and our neighbour’s land and you couldn’t drive straight down because the fields were terrible.

“They didn’t have a 4x4 so it ended up being four firefighters in our Landrover with all the rescue equipment.”

It took more than an hour before the emergency services could find the desperate couple, who live in Dingle Lane with daughter Laura, 21, and son Dominic, 18.

They rescued Lucy using an inflatable hose and safety rope and she was taken to Leighton Hospital to be checked over.

She said: “I was finding it hard to hold on to the tree even though my body was being pushed against it.

“The cold gets to you so much – my chest was hurting, my stomach was hurting, my muscles were hurting, and I couldn’t see how they were going to get me out when they got there.”

She praised the work of her rescuers and Bill, who also washed and dried all her clothes and her mobile phone.

Fortunately the incident left Lucy with no lasting damage, just aches, pains and a few bruises, and she is determined to get back out in her kayak.

“I wouldn’t want to put anyone off the River Weaver,” Lucy said.

“It’s absolutely gorgeous, especially when you get further upstream where you can’t get access other than by water.

“We’ll be going up there again, but maybe when the weather has calmed down.”