A wheelchair user's peaceful Christmas Eve stroll along the Baltic coast turned into a frightening ordeal when her heavy electric chair became trapped in soft sand, leaving her stranded in freezing conditions for hours.
A Cosy Evening Turns into a Christmas Nightmare
The incident occurred in Boltenhagen, a popular resort on the German Baltic Sea. The woman, who has not been named, was enjoying the seaside with a companion when she attempted to manoeuvre her wheelchair closer to the water's edge.
The 200kg electric wheelchair suddenly began to sink into the unstable sand and became completely immobilised. Despite efforts lasting over an hour, neither she nor her companion could free the heavy vehicle from its sandy trap.
Fire Brigade Launch Unusual Rescue Mission
With the situation becoming increasingly desperate as temperatures hovered around freezing, the pair finally alerted the local fire brigade at 5pm on December 24th.
Community fire chief Sebastian Hacker, 45, described the scene to German newspaper Bild. "The women had left the rubber mats between the dunes with the wheelchair," he said. "But in the sand, the heavy wheelchair could no longer move forward. Near the water it was very uncomfortable."
The rescuers' first priority was the woman's safety. Using a carrying sling, they carefully transported her off the beach to a nearby wooden beach hut. There, she was wrapped in blankets to recover from the cold.
45-Minute Struggle to Recover the Wheelchair
With the woman safe and warming up, four firefighters then turned their attention to the stranded wheelchair. The operation to heave and pull the substantial electric chair from the dunes proved challenging.
It took the team 45 minutes of concerted effort to finally free the wheelchair and remove it from the beach entirely. Chief Hacker noted the uniqueness of the call-out, stating, "We’ve never had a call-out like this before. But we were glad that the woman was unharmed."
The successful rescue concluded a tense Christmas Eve operation, highlighting the unexpected dangers that inaccessible terrain can pose for people with mobility aids, even during a simple seaside visit.
