A DOORMAN who has helped prevent two women from drowning in the Ouse is hoping to launch a new river rescue boat.

Dave Benson, head doorman at Yates’s bar, near Ouse Bridge in York city centre, swung into action last weekend when a young woman fell 25 feet into the river.

He said he saw the woman hanging on to a wall in the water below Yates’s walkway.

“I lowered a life ring to her while also trying to stop her friends from jumping in off the bridge to get to her,” Dave said.

“I pulled her along the river to a ledge, where police officers were able to help her out and paramedics attended.”

Dave, a former serviceman, who was helped by a doorman from another nearby bar, also helped haul a teenager to safety last year when she was standing on a ledge alongside Ouse Bridge and trying to jump in the water.

Several weeks ago he was involved in trying to rescue a man who jumped from the bridge and was at risk of drowning until he managed to escape from the river.

Dave, 31, said he knew bartender Richard Horrocks, who drowned after jumping in the river from a balcony at the end of a shift in 2011, prompting The Press to launch its Think, Don’t Swim campaign aimed at highlighting the dangers posed by the rivers.

Now Mr Benson says he wants to help reduce the risk of future tragedies by launching a rescue boat, which would patrol the river during the times when people are most at risk of falling or jumping in, such as racedays and Saturday nights.

He said the boat would be manned by volunteers, but he estimated at least £30,000 would be needed to buy and equip the boat, a trailer and vehicle to get it to the riverside.

He said the boat would get quickly to the scene when someone had fallen in and every second counted, but it would supplement rather than rival York firefighters’ rescue boat.

He said he had raised the idea with fire service chiefs and Jim Geogheghan-Breen, emergency planning co-ordinator of the River Ouse Safety Advisory Group, who had welcomed it.

Dave Dryburgh, North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service group manager for York and Selby, said: “Any proposal that improves public safety on the rivers of York is always welcome, but it would have to be thought through, and I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this idea.”