Lifeboat crewman Mick Nield has become one of only a handful of people in RNLI history to launch more than 1,000 times.

Mr Nield, from City Way in Rochester, has rescued 203 people in 14 years.

During that time he has plucked drowning swimmers to safety, brought a man who was not breathing and who had no pulse back to life and even pulled a man from the water who had jumped off a boat to escape his complaining wife.

Mr Nield is a full-time helmsman based at Tower RNLI lifeboat station, a floating pier on the River Thames next to Waterloo Bridge in London.

The 46-year-old has been saving lives on the river since the RNLI began operating in London in 2001.

He said: “Not many people in the RNLI’s history have made it to 1,000 launches so it’s a nice feeling to reach the milestone.

"Even now I still get that rush of adrenalin when the bell goes and we launch the lifeboat.

“I play out scenarios in my mind about how a rescue might unfold before we arrive. It can be tense.

"You may only get one chance to grab someone before they go under, but you put any nerves to the back of your mind and keep focused and calm so you can do your job and save that person.”

The dad of two, a former Royal Engineer, vividly recalls spotting a man face down in the River Thames in central London.

He said: “He wasn’t breathing and had no pulse when we got him on the lifeboat so the crew carried out CPR.

“In the space of the 500m or so between Blackfriars and the lifeboat station at Waterloo Bridge, the man had regained consciousness and was able to shake the crew’s hands and walk off the lifeboat. It was incredible.”

The River Thames is used safely by thousands of people every day, but fast flowing currents, cold waters and numerous obstacles can catch people out.

And, sadly, part of the lifeboat crew’s work is helping people who have attempted to take their own lives.

Mr Nield said: “A job that sticks in the mind was to a man on the riverbank at Greenwich who had been in the river but managed to get himself out.

He was in a fenced off area which meant the police and ambulance couldn’t get to him by land.

“On the rare occasions I have a bad day, I think about how lucky I am to be able to save people’s lives as a job. It’s not a bad legacy to leave” - Mick Neild

“We approached from the water and it turned out the man had tried to take his own life after being made redundant.

"He told us he was going to jump into the river again. He was in a bad way so we sat together talking for about 20 minutes.

“We talked about our families and I told him my family were at home waiting for me to finish work, but if he jumped back in, I would jump in after him, risking my life to rescue him.

"I think this struck a chord because he let us take him to safety."

Mr Nield’s 1,000th launch was a short one. The crew were called by coastguards to a vulnerable lady at Vauxhall Bridge but she was helped by the police on land and the lifeboat was stood down.

He added: “On the rare occasions I have a bad day, I think about how lucky I am to be able to save people’s lives as a job. It’s not a bad legacy to leave.”