A DISTRAUGHT husband fought in vain to save his wife’s life, watched by their family sharing a boat trip off the Kent coast.

Crews from Sheerness Lifeboat Station and a rescue helicopter from RAF Wattisham were called to a creek three miles from Sheerness just after 8.30am Sunday.

The family from Benfleet in Essex, a husband, wife, daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren were in a cabin cruiser which was moored up in the creek when the 62-year-old woman suffered a fatal cardiac arrest.

Lifeboat coxswain Robin Castle said: “The husband had tried CPR before we arrived and it was very traumatic for the whole family.”

The woman was airlifted from the cabin cruiser to hospital where she was pronounced dead.