Courtesy of an introduction by Janice McMahon of the first aid materials supplier Steroplast, at the Emergency Services Show 2024 at the Birmingham NEC we met Pete Lewin, and his emotional support swim dogs.
If anything can bring a smile to the face of a seen-it-all visitor to a trade show, it’s big, shaggy dogs like Pete’s Newfoundlands. We met Ralph, aged three in October, who loved getting attention and his picture taken. Pete Lewin is a long-time Midlands paramedic by profession who with other volunteers takes people swimming – ‘military veterans, emergency services staff, people with disabilities, people suffering with depression, anxiety’. They go in open water, ‘lakes mainly’. “We supply wet-suits, dry-suits, buoyancy aids, swimming boots, gloves, and the equipment, and the dogs. And we make sure when people come they are never alone; and we try and make them part of the team.”
As for what they do, Pete described it as simple but effective. “Once we have all the swimming kit on we will have a look at how they perform in the water so we know their abilities and then we introduce the dogs.” Pete will take one swimmer out at a time, 30 or 40 metres from the bank. The dog then goes out to the swimmer, who holds onto the dog’s harness and the dog pulls the person back to shore. What’s the reaction from the swimmers? “Put it this way, I have been doing it for ten years, people come probably quite sad-looking, and depressed-looking, and when they have had swims with the dogs, I have never yet seen anybody come out of that wate without a big smile on their face. Whatever the change is in the water, I don’t know. It is just an amazing experience.”
Pete added that he never asks anyone why they are there: “I am not a counsellor, I am a paramedic; we don’t deal with counselling because if I ask questions, they want answers.” The Newfoundland dogs then – as the name suggests, from Canada – take people away from whatever is bothering them for a few hours, doing something completely different.
Visit https://petelewinnewfoundlands.co.uk/about-us.html.
Photo by Mark Rowe: Pete Lewin and Raplh on the exhibition floor of the Emergency Services Show (ESS) 2024. ESS 2025 runs on September 17 and 18 at the NEC.
