As part of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution's Float to Live campaign, Michael Whiteley shares how the technique saved his life.
Credit: Royal National Lifeboat Institution
Credit: Royal National Lifeboat Institution
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00:00 7.45, 8th of January and I was out with a friend.
00:04 We were for a morning swim. We do it quite a lot.
00:08 It was a little bit rough but we were treading water because it's a bit rocky underfoot.
00:13 And we got out of our depth and Adam got back in.
00:19 But I couldn't get back in and it was extremely scary.
00:23 You just can't imagine how you feel when you're in that situation.
00:27 I tried to swim back to shore and I'm a pretty strong swimmer, front crawl.
00:34 And I just wasn't making any progress.
00:37 And that's the time I thought I'm in trouble here.
00:41 I shouted and waved to my friend and said I'm in trouble.
00:46 And then it kicked back the training we had in Scarborough back in October last year.
00:54 And I pictured float to live or the starfish position.
00:59 I thought my best hope is to try and get in a safe position and wait for the RLI to come and get me.
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