RIVERSIDE rescuers who raced to a deadly stretch of the River Severn were met with indifference from people who could have perished in the incoming tide.
After worried mum Jenni Silver alerted HM Coastguard and Severn Area Rescue Association, two boats were sent out to get three people off the sands on the eastern bank of the river at Arlingham.
It is where 10-year-old Tom Haile died after being swept away by shifting sands in July 2008.
"I honestly thought that there could have been a drowning," said mum-of-one Jenni, 31, from Kingsholm, who was staying with her family in Newnham when she saw the incident unfold on Easter Monday.
"I was really worried. There were two groups of people, one of which walked down the sands and got off and the other group of three people who had dogs with them.
"We were watching from Newnham churchyard at 11.20am and we knew it was high tide at Sharpness in under an hour.
"They were still there and I just didn't want to read that someone had drowned, after what's happened there before."
She called SARA, which told her to dial 999 for the Coastguard. SARA, which was formed in 1985 after the deaths of a mum, dad and child on sand flats off Sharpness, sent two boats to the scene.
"They did not seem to be interested in being told of the danger they were in," said Geoff Dawe, operations manager at the SARA Sharpness lifeboat station.
The tidal mud and sand flats between Arlingham and Newnham have proved deadly - the river has the biggest rise and fall of a navigable waterway in the world which results in fast tides.
"It's not far from where young Tom died and we all remember that very clearly," said Mr Dawe.
"They needed to understand that their lives were at risk.
"It's not something we tell people lightly.
"They were talked off the flats and we pointed out that where they walked off was covered in water shortly afterwards.
"There are deep holes and whirlpools there and it was disappointing that they appeared not to want to take our advice."
In July 2008, Kingsholm Primary School pupil Tom Haile was carried away and drowned while swimming with two relatives in the River Severn near The Passage at Arlingham.
The Coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death on the youngster, from Hardwicke and warned of the dangers of getting too close to the river there.
