Bucklebury Ford rescue triggers firefighters' Sat Nav warning

According to Richard Young, watch manager of Green Watch at Newbury Fire Station, three pumps, from Newbury, Whitley Wood, Reading and Pangbourne, together with the Water Rescue Unit from Caversham Road, Reading and command support vehicle from Tilehurst, were called at 10.15pm to Bucklebury Ford, in Brocks Lane, where two men and two women were stranded in their car, in two feet of water.
The occupants remained in their car while firefighters wearing dry suits waded in to attach a line to the car, before the vehicle was towed out of the water.
Mr Young said the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service mobilised an extensive amount of manpower and equipment to deal with all water rescue incidents, as the severity of each incident could not be fully ascertained until arrival at the scene.
Those following Sat Nav instructions, he continued, should use common sense: “If you see the ford looks deep, don’t cross it,” he said.
The ford, he continued, had been closed, due to the amount of water flowing through it , following recent heavy rain and also the number of cars getting stuck in the ford, but drivers were ignoring, or not spotting the ‘closed’ signs - which in this case, he said, had fallen over
It was the second such incident in two weeks, he added, which firefighters had been called to attend at Bucklebury Ford.
In January this year, firefighters issued a similar warning about the dangers of driving through fords, after that month hauling several vehicles out of Bucklebury Ford.
At Headley Ford, over the Berkshire/Hampshire border, concrete barriers were erected at the ford, in Thornford Road, following an October 2011 inquest into the death of Middlelesex judge, 52-year-old Jonathan Gammon, after the car he was a passenger in was swept away in April 2011 in flash floods at the ford, in the swollen River Enborne.
The inquest revealed drivers were removing temporary barriers at the closed Headley ford to drive through it and permanent barriers were erected immediately after the inquest.