ITV I'm a Celeb star Jordan North admits 'couldn't hold on much longer' after river rescue
by Annabal Bagdi, Victoria Johns, https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/authors/annabal-bagdi/ · Birmingham LiveFormer ITV I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! star Jordan North has been rescued from the Thames. The Capital FM host went into the river to save his Labrador during a run on Monday, December 16.
A member of the public raised the alarm when they spotted Jordan stepping from a pontoon into the water. The 34-year-old was then rescued by Chiswick RNLI.
RNLI crew were out on exercise and reached the pair, near Hammersmith Bridge, just three minutes after they were alerted to the incident. Jordan was sat on a nearby float lift with his dog as members of the public held up torches on their phone to help the RNLI locate him.
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Jordan said on Capital Breakfast: "A big thank you and a massive shout out to RNLI Chiswick who came and rescued me because I was getting a bit panicky. I was getting a bit nervy as well because I thought my legs are going to go, I can't hold on much longer so they got there just in time.
"The real heroes here are the RNLI who came out and got me, put a blanket round me. They're the heroes." Thames Commander Gavin Simmons and crew Sid Blake, Tom Coe and Cameron Crawley found Jordan, Mirror reports.
Speaking about his rescue mission, Gavin said: "We are on call to help all those who find themselves in difficulty on the water 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even our beloved pets. While we’d always encourage people to call 999 and ask for the Coastguard instead of entering the water themselves, we’re happy that in this instance we were able to help Jordan and the dog safely back to dry land."
The RNLI is currently running its annual Christmas fundraising appeal to acknowledge crews who keep the public safe over the festive period. On average, RNLI lifeboats launch more than 100 times during the Christmas period every year.