Ambulance for liveaboard family 'roasting' in narrowboat

AN AMBULANCE was called to a boating family who were taken to hospital with heat exhaustion.

This occurred with the family in a narrowboat on the Grand Union Canal at Uxbridge when, according to paramedics, the temperature inside the steel narrowboat reached over 40 degrees centigrade, with two young children and their mother suffering heat exhaustion.

Extreme heat

Boaters that had left their narrowboats along the waterway in the extreme heat, noticed the family were still inside and ill, so called the ambulance with all three taken to hospital for treatment. It is not known if there was further heat being generated in the boat to cause the exceptional temperature.

A member of the ambulance team stated it was 'roasting'. 'Len' from a nearby boat told that many boaters had vacated their craft in the heat as the slight wind was blowing 'across and not through the boats and not helping to cool them.  It is understood the family recovered.