VIDEO: Hunt sparked for person feared to have jumped in River Arun
More than a dozen firefighters were supported by police officers, paramedics, the coastguard and Littlehampton’s lifeboat crews in a widespread search of the river between Arundel and Littlehampton.
The incident unfurled shortly before 10pm, with fire crews initially amassing by the A27 bridge over the Arun in Arundel.
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Hide AdCrews from Littlehampton and Arundel searched under the bridge and along the banks, with a team of lifeboat volunteers using high-powered torches to scan the bridges, pontoons and river banks from Arundel to the river’s mouth, in Littlehampton.
Despite an extensive search, through the misty conditions, emergency services found no-one in the river.
The operation lasted more than two hours, with firefighters being stood down at 11.42pm.
Nick White, lifeboat operations manager at the RNLI in Littlehampton, said: “The call that we had was in response to the fact that someone was thought to have gone in the river at Arundel.
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Hide Ad“We were tasked to search from Littlehampton up to Arundel.
“We do what we always do. We did a thorough search of anything either side of the river and along the river’s natural flow.
“We checked out the bridge supports, Ford Marina and the pontoons but could not locate anyone.”
Mr White said that the RNLI currently remained on standby to resume the search later today, if police issued the call.