Lax water safety attitude criticised

Press, 27 February 1989, Page 10

Lax water safety attitude criticised

By

SARONA IOSEFA

a wave and rolled. The alarm was raised by an on-shore onlooker. “It was quite fortunate they were spotted, because they were not wearing lifejackets, and were very cold and tired by the time the rescue boats reached them. “Conditions were quite moderate but it doesn’t usually take long even with those conditions, for someone to tire in the water and suffer from hypothermia,” Mr Baguley said. The two men did not need hospital attention. Mr Baguley said that in spite of water safety campaigns there had been no noticeable increase of people using the correct safety equipment. Asked whether cost had a lot to do with it, Mr Baguley said it did. “Lifejackets cost a lot of money but, so does your life. Unfortunately, people don’t seem to associate those two factors when considering safety equipment," he said.

For a country completely surrounded by the sea, New Zealanders were the least water-orien-tated people in the world, said the secretary of the Sumner Lifeboat Institution, Mr Walter Baguley, yesterday. Mr Baguley made the comment after the rescue of two men in a sailing dinghy yesterday where neither of the occupants were wearing lifejackets. The two men were rescued just off Sumner Heads when the sailing dinghy they were in capsized about 5.20 p.m. yesterday. Sumner Surf Life-Saving Club members were the first on the scene with two inshore rescue boats, and a jet lifeboat from the Scarborough Boat House lifeboat station arrived soon after. Mr Baguley, said the two men, aged 25 and 26 years, were on their way back to Sumner from a camping trip at Camp Bay, Lyttleton when they caught on

A committee member of the Sumner Surf Life-Saving Club, Mr Glenn Fergus, said he fully supported Mr Baguley’s comments. The club was kept busy yesterday. At noon there was a rescue of six people caught in a rip at Sumner Beach on an out-going tide, he said.

do. Often it’s because they’re embarrassed at being rescued,” said Mr Fergus. “In a lot of cases we’ll take them back to the beach and they will walk away without any thanks for their rescue,” Mr Fergus said. Many people did not think of

Mr Fergus said the club had tried in vain to make the public aware of the rip that existed along the beach front from the surf club to Cave Rock. “We’ve put a notice up on the beach but the public hang their towels on it or use it as wickets for cricket. ‘‘They just have little idea of the dangers that exist out there with such a strong undercurrent,” Mr Fergus said. When attending a rescue the first thing they said to the person was, “Do you need a hand?”

the consequences of swimming where they were told not to, or not wearing lifejackets. “They think they’re only intending to do a bit of in-shore activity but, you just never know what could happen. “A great percentage of our work is rescuing surfers washed out to sea or kayakers that are usually warned time and time again,” he said. “To be fair though, there are also those who do know how to deal with the sea responsibly, it’s just the other few that get them-

“You’d be surprised at the selves into situations that they number of people that say they could have avoided,” Mr Fergus don’t even when they obviously