ONE OF the largest providers of holidays and holiday home ownership in the UK, has bought dozens of manikins from a Denbighshire company to help train its lifeguards.

The revolutionary Ruth Lee Ltd. dummies are being used by Bourne Leisure to train over 500 lifeguards at 57 of their sites around the country.

The Pool Rescue Manikins are the latest rescue training dummies to be launched by the Corwen-based company.

They were developed with assistance from the water safety charity The Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS UK) and have been tested extensively by their trained lifeguards.

The 30kg manikins provide a realistic tool to simulate the rescue of a real person who is potentially drowning. They can be thrown into a pool where they quickly sink to the bottom but retain enough buoyancy to be towed effectively.

Sarah Hampson from Ruth Lee Ltd said: “We are delighted to be providing Bourne Leisure with our Pool Rescue Manikins.

"Our manikins provide lifeguards with a realistic challenge which also allows them to learn how to safely manoeuvre people in distress in water.

“Our product brings together different elements of lifeguard training, allowing trainees to seamlessly practice different techniques without needing to switch between different equipment or live volunteers.

"Saving lives is a subject very close to our hearts and the leading driver in all the products we create."

Bourne Leisure welcomes more than 4 million families to their parks, resorts and hotels every year.

Ruth Lee Ltd has also seen its Pool Rescue Manikins snapped up by lifeguards in 17 countries including the US, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Malaysia, Estonia, Spain, Brazil and Iceland.

In the UK, drowning is one of the leading causes of accidental death in children and every year in the UK and Ireland more than 700 people drown.