It looked like another desperate race against time as the emergency services were scrambled to reports of a person in the river in York this morning (Monday).
Happily, though, this one turned out to be a false alarm.
Police vans and mobile incident units, along with paramedics and the York Rescue Boat, responded to the reports at around 8.40am.
There was someone in the river near Clifton Bridge. But it turned out he didn’t need rescuing.
“Officers attended and located a man going for a swim in the river. He was given advice,” a spokesman for North Yorkshire Police said.
Dave Horn of York Rescue Boat had the full story. He said: “A member of the public reported concern about a person in the river. It turned out that a kayaker was washing some of his kit in the water and had gone in to clean his wetsuit off.
“We are always happy to be alerted to potential dangers but thankfully there was no problem on this occasion.”
A spokeswoman for Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust said: “We were called at 8.45am to reports of a male in the water near Clifton Bridge, York.
“An ambulance and a clinical supervisor were dispatched to the scene where the patient was checked over, but did not require conveyance to hospital.”
This is not the first incident of its kind.
We reported how a man was seen serenely doing the breaststroke in the River Ouse in York city centre in August.
“Although a strong swimmer, he was given advice about the dangers of swimming in the river, the concern it raises among members of the public and the impact on the emergency services,” police told us at the time.