IMAGINE this - you are a school teacher and are busy teaching a class of 30 on an ordinary Tuesday morning.

A report comes in on your pager about a woman who is in trouble in the Severn Estuary. It is rated with an “immediate” risk - the most serious and meaning life is in danger.

You quickly leave work and head to a rescue base in Chepstow where you jump in a lifeboat and set off in a bid to save her life.

This scenario is all too real for some of the 200 volunteers who give their time to the Severn Area Rescue Association, a charity which has helped thousands of people since it was set up in 1973.

They respond to three different types of calls; emergencies on the Severn Estuary needing lifeboats, mountain rescue operations and responses to floods.

The organisation last year responded to 60 calls, which were spread approximately 50/50 across lifeboat and mountain rescue calls.

Area commander Mervyn Fleming said the estuary comes first, as they are the only rescue service operating there.

He said: “But if we are looking for an elderly person who’s missing overnight, for example, we have got the police and fire search teams too.”

Mr Fleming said volunteers hail from a range of normal careers including shopkeepers, police officers, teachers and farm workers.

He said when a 999, 112, or 911 call is made in cases requiring lifeboat rescue, the coastguard will send out a page on the paging system.

A SARA volunteer called a “launch operation manager” (LOM) – normally someone who is retired – will contact the coastguard to find out what the problem is.

If the LOM decides they need to help or the emergency is rated as “immediate”, they will then page members of the crew, who could be at work or asleep.

Mr Fleming, who has worked with SARA for 17 years, said: “Most of the crew have an agreement with their employer and then they will be released from work.

“Even some of the head teachers are good at letting the staff off. It causes all sorts of problems at work.

“An ‘Immediate’ could mean we are looking for somebody who’s fallen off the Town Bridge in Newport or whose life is in immediate danger.”

If SARA is called to something not immediate, for example a search for a missing person, the action taken is not as urgent although equipment is still provided and crews deployed.

The Severn Estuary is a particularly dangerous area of water.

Steve Trott, who has worked at SARA for around eight years and now supports crew members on operations, said the estuary has the second highest rise and fall of tide in the world second only to an area in Canada.

Twice a day the water levels rise 14 metres from low to high tide, meaning it is easy for people to get stranded or cut off.

Ronald Harris, from Sedbury, has been involved with the rescue organisation for 38 years.

He said when it first began, the charity was run by a team of sailors who were called out by the coastguard if there was an emergency.

He said he remembers being a volunteer and going out on the rescue boats.

He said: “At that time I was a young man and it was all quite exciting.

“But we didn’t have the level of equipment we have got now. It was rough and ready but over the years we have managed to improve our equipment.

“It’s very satisfying, not just to myself but all the other members who put their time into it. I still get satisfaction from it now even though I don’t go out on the boats.

“I’m more of a back-up role in the control room or get the equipment ready.”

He said there have been some rescue operations which have stayed with him over the years.

He said: “I’m afraid one of the most memorable ones was when we had two children in the river and we managed to recover both children but sadly one was dead.

“They had only just gone in and one managed to survive. That was one of the worst. But then again we do a lot of body recoveries, suicides on the bridge. We help to recover people off cliffs.

“It can be very interesting but it’s a lot of hard work. We train twice a week, Thursday and Sunday."

He said volunteers have to train for up to a year before they are ready to go out with the crew.

But even for people who do not go in the boats, there are other roles.

Mr Harris said: “Some people come here who hate boats but they still have a use, for example on the land search team.”

But he added that the commitment is huge.

He said: “It’s not just the people who do it but their families too. When I first started my wife used to wait up, she doesn’t anymore!”

For the mountain rescues, the skills of belaying, traversing and rigging for a lift are all part of SARA crew training, as well as preparing the landing site for an air ambulance and guiding the pilot safely to the ground.

The nearby cliffs in Symonds Yat, Wye Valley, Avon Gorge, Aust, Sedbury and the River Wye also attract many climbers each year, some who get into difficulty and require help from SARA.

The charity, which operates 24 hours a day and seven days a week, is funded almost exclusively through support from the community and borough council as well as through public donations.

And as well as the rescues, the charity also works with the local community through its work with nearby schools.

Steve Trott said he has worked with Haberdashers’ Monmouth School for Girls to launch projects to design technology products, some which are now used in the actual control room.

It is clear the charity provides an incredibly important service to the area, and the volunteers are rightly proud to be involved.