A MAN who was trapped waist-deep in rising water off the Southport coast last night spoke of how he thought he would die as emergency services frantically searched for him.

Terry Howard, 48, eventually guided rescuers to his position through freezing fog using his mobile phone after a four-hour nightmare.

His temperature had dropped so much his body heat could not even be picked up by thermal imaging equipment and he was taken to hospital suffering from hypothermia.

Mr Howard, a joiner from Tarleton, is still having nightmares about the events of New Year’s Eve and was not able to talk about it until yesterday.

Still wearing a woolly hat indoors, he said: “I can not praise the emergency services enough. The Coastguard teams, lifeboat, rangers, air ambulance team, police and fire crews were tremendous.

“No one can appreciate what they do. They are unbelievable. If another few minutes had gone by I would not be here if it was not for them.”

Mr Howard was walking his three Labrador dogs along Southport beach when sudden fog enveloped him and the tide quickly gushed up to the tops of his thighs.

He had lost his bearings after falling over frozen debris which left him disorientated when the weather turned for the worse.

Panicking, he called wife Patricia, 49, who alerted the rangers who then mobilised other emergency services.

He said: “I have never experienced fog come in like that before. When I was going out it was clearing.