A HUGE piece of sand art was almost destroyed before it was finished at Woolacombe yesterday as a rescue helicopter looked for a place to land.
Chivenor was called to the beach at around 2pm following reports of a girl having a severe asthma attack.
Flying over the beach, duty captain Matt Prosser saw an unusually clear space on the otherwise crowded beach.
He said: "I very nearly chose it as a landing space but it was obviously some kind of sculpture.
"Another landing space was being cleared for us and I thought it would be a bit rude to land on it.
"It looked really impressive so it's good we didn't have to ruin it."
Mr Prosser said the girl was in "quite a bit of distress" but was flown to hospital and is not in a critical condition.
The sand art is by visiting artist Julian Richardson, who spent most of the day creating the intricate pattern of geometric shapes.
He said: "It would have been great if they'd landed on it.
"We saw them flying low and thought they might because the beach was absolutely packed.
"It would have made a great action shot."
Although the helicopter did not destroy the artwork, the tide eventually did.
