A paramedic involved in the rescue of mum Saffron Cole-Nottage described a ‘disjointed’ operation in which responders effectively ‘winged it’.
Billy Seaman, a paramedic with the East of England Ambulance Service, gave evidence at Suffolk Coroner’s Court on Thursday as the inquest continued to examine the response to the incident on 2 February last year.
The hearing has already heard concerns surrounding delays in the emergency response after the mother-of-six, 32, became trapped head-first between rocks near the shoreline as the tide rose.
Questioned by Bridget Dolan KC, Counsel for the Inquest, Mr Seaman admitted he struggled to access critical drowning guidance while travelling to the scene.
‘I was trying to access it (guidance on how to respond to a drowning incident), I really struggled getting the information going to the job, we couldn’t find it,’ he told the court.
Later in his evidence, he added: ‘I couldn’t access the submerged persons tool.’
The court heard Seaman arrived at the scene at around 8.12pm that evening, alongside colleague Devina Purnell. Another medical professional, Colleen Gibson, was already at the scene.
Describing the conditions, Mr Seaman said: ‘It was dark,’ adding: ‘I had no idea if I could drive straight down and reverse.’
Saffron Cole-Nottage, 32, drowned after falling in a gap between rocks after slipping while walking her dog on February 2, 2025
At an inquest into her death this week, a paramedic said he and other responders effectively ‘winged it’ when they ruised to the scene on Lowestoft seafront, Suffolk
He told the court: ‘I stood on the railings. I just saw Saffron’s leg, that’s all I saw.’
Mr Seaman also admitted he ‘hadn’t really been prepared for how severely stuck she was.’
The major focus of Thursday’s proceedings was the communication between responders and uncertainty around how long Saffron had been submerged.
The court heard Gibson had information relating to the rising tide and the estimated time Saffron had been underwater. However, Seaman admitted he never directly spoke with her.
‘There was no update of that. I didn’t have that information passed to me directly, I didn’t have a conversation with Colleen,’ he said.
Asked by Ms Dolan KC whether that information would have helped, Seaman replied: ‘Yeah, it would have been helpful, absolutely.’
Repeated concerns over communication failures emerged throughout the hearing.
He admitted: ‘I didn’t communicate this to anyone else.’
He also told the court: ‘I didn’t really have communication with other services on the scene, other than the police.’
At one stage, Mr Seaman said he was ‘trying to work out who they were’ when referring to individuals at the scene.
Questioned later by Saba Naqshbandi KC, Counsel for the Family, Seaman reflected on the rescue operation and admitted: ‘Looking back I wish there was way more communication and discussion.’
Asked whether he had been involved in inter-agency discussions, he replied: ‘I was not involved in any inter-agency discussions.’
The inquest also heard concerns about the apparent lack of command structure at the scene.
‘JESIP principles (Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles) not put into place, no overall coordinator,’ the court heard.
Seaman later described how the response had become ‘disjointed’ between agencies, adding: ‘We severely missed (communicating).’
Seaman referred to responders effectively ‘winging it’.
Ms Cole-Nottage was described as a ‘loving mother who was completely devoted to her children’
The court also heard concerns around training and preparedness within the ambulance service itself.
‘Since my training in 2014, Saffron was the first patient I had been to who had drowned,’ Seaman said.
He later added: ‘We are supposed to have annual training, but it is not always delivered.’
Under questioning from Ms Naqshbandi KC, Seaman also described training modules as ‘not monitored’.
‘(Online training is) not monitored, it’s there if you go looking for it…it’s when you get round to it,’ he said.
The paramedic further admitted he had ‘no experience managing those scenes.’
The court heard Mr Seaman believed rescue efforts should continue despite uncertainty over survival chances, while Purnell had earlier believed Saffron was likely beyond recovery due to the length of time she had been unresponsive.
Asked whether he later wished he had challenged decisions made on the night, Seaman replied: ‘Absolutely.’
Describing the conditions emergency crews faced, he added: ‘It was cold, it was wet, the lighting was poor, we had no life-vests.’
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The inquest also heard from Police Constable Alex Allport, now an acting sergeant, who said that when he arrived at the scene he was only told there was ‘somebody on the rocks’.
Allport added that the only thing a coastguard told him was ‘body recovery’.
Asked whether paramedics had spoken to him before he reached Saffron, he replied: ‘No.’
Allport said the first thing he heard a paramedic say was: ‘Clearly deceased.’
Describing Saffron’s condition, he told the court there was ‘no movement, no sound’ and her leg was in a ‘rigid unnatural position’.
Later, under questioning from Saba Naqshbandi KC, Counsel for the Family, Allport said ‘rigor mortis’ appeared to have set in.
‘That was just my opinion from bodies I had seen in the past,’ he said, describing ‘greying of the skin in an upright position.’
However, he stressed he would not have made such an assessment without medical professionals present.
The officer repeatedly highlighted both a lack of training and the dangers responders faced.
‘Slippery conditions and lack of equipment. We’re not trained in any incident of that nature,’ he said.
Allport also told the court that fire crews should have been called much earlier, or ‘at least at the same time’.
The inquest continues.
