A busy weekend for lifesavers, headlined by a successful resuscitation at Ocean Beach on the Central Coast, has once again highlighted the value of volunteers patrolling our coastlines.
A little after 8am on Sunday 13 November the Surf Life Saving NSW State Operations Centre was made aware of a CPR in progress at Ocean Beach SLSC for a 65-year-old club member who had collapsed on the shoreline.
The man had been preparing to swim with the club’s Silver Salties group.
Lifesavers performed 15 rounds of CPR and the defibrillator shocked the patient twice.
The patient was then transported to Gosford Hospital conscious, breathing and talking.
“He sent us a text last night thanking us which was very nice, it’s a great sign and was a great success,” Duty Officer, Paul Sharpe said.
“The big thing is, even the paramedics were so surprised how professional everything was. They commended our lifesavers.
“It just proves that early CPR and defibrillation saves lives. It’s one of the best things I’ve seen for a long time, there were so many members involved.”
Paul said there was a lot of raw emotion following the incident after it mirrored a very similar one with a different result almost two years to the hour before.
“For a lot of the club members, it was two years to the day that they’d done another CPR and lost a member of the club, so there was a lot of raw emotion, and it was great to see a good result,” he said.
“A lot of credit goes to Ocean Beach, how they train members, everyone was calm, no one was flustered, it was a well-oiled machine.”
This incident came after a rescue at nearby Avoca Beach the evening before, when four males were pulled from a rip by an Inflatable Rescue Boat (IRB) just after 6pm.
In what was originally reported as three people in distress, the Avoca Beach SLSC call out team was engaged, and the four men were eventually returned to shore with no additional medical attention required.
Surf Life Saving assets were also requested by the NSW Police Force at around 7.30am Sunday for a search of Malabar Beach after female clothing and jewellery was found on the shore.
No person had been reported missing at the time.
Rescue Water Craft (jetskis) from Sydney Branch joined the Water Police and Polair in conducting a search, and the incident was closed a short time later with Police satisfied no person was missing.
In all, 53 rescues were conducted across the weekend by volunteers, 64 first aids administered, 15 ambulances called and 11 emergency incidents were recorded for the week commencing 7 November.
Monday 14 November 2022