A PROFOUNDLY deaf woman saved the lives of two sailors when her new hearing aids picked up their cries for help that others could not hear.

    Christine Bowden, 77, was in her garden on the Cornish coast when she heard shouts from around half a mile out to sea.

    The retired secretary — who had bought the hearing aids only the day before — spotted an upturned dinghy and raised the alarm.

    Two lifeboats were scrambled. One man in a life jacket was found desperately trying to swim to shore, with the second man clinging to the hull of the upturned 3-meter boat without a life jacket.

    The first of the two had hypothermia and was close to exhaustion when he was hauled from the water at Looe.

    The second was also rescued and their boat was righted and towed back to shore. The lifeboat crew told Bowden that the men, two middle-aged holidaymakers, probably owed their lives to her and her two new hearing aids.

    She said, “They were very lucky as I had just got my hearing aids. If it had happened the day before I may not have heard them and who knows what would have happened.”

    The drama unfolded Saturday afternoon as Bowden was tending to her vegetable patch outside her house around 500 yards (457 meters) from the water’s edge.

    She said she was the only one that heard them, which was confirmed by the coastguards.

    (SD-Agencies)