Lifeguards report increase in rescues

Published on Stuff.co.nz and in the Waikato Times

Mt Maunganui lifeguards recorded a 92.6 per cent increase in rescues, reflecting a national trend, where 27 per cent more swimmers found themselves in trouble in the water.

Around New Zealand's 80 beaches, 1310 rescues were made during the 2014-2015 summer season, compared to 1034 the previous season.

The northern region, which has 20 lifesaving clubs including one at Raglan, saw the biggest increase with 123 more rescues for the 2014-2015 summer (453), compared to the previous summer (330).

But in the eastern region, Mt Maunganui lifeguards were by far the busiest, making 104 rescues, 50 more than for the previous summer season.

"It definitely kept the lifeguards a whole lot busier," said Mt Maunganui Lifeguard Service general manager, Glenn Bradley.

"We had better weather as a whole than we had last year, which contributed to having more people on the beach leading to more people getting into trouble."

He said the metre high waves can be deceptive.

"They don't necessarily look huge but certainly it's enough to contribute to significant rips and to create powerful waves."

People needed to be conscious of the conditions and their abilities he said, to hopefully lower the number of responses next year.

"It's just the basic safety messages, always swim between the flags, never swim alone, and the old one, if in doubt, stay out."

At Raglan, the lifesaving club has only seen two extra rescues this year and administrator John Thomas, said an increase in the number of rescues was not something to be proud of.

"Our emphasis is on prevention, not actual rescue. Having a rescue often means you haven't responded to the person before they got into difficulty. Sometimes a rip can come in and 'swoosh' you're gone no matter how good you are but preventative action is a big deal.

"We had 6341 of those [preventative actions] involving 23,652 people, to stop the people from getting into trouble and needing to be rescued."

He said he was proud of his club for the work they had done, but it never gets easier.

"The pressure is on to do the preventative work, to be down at the water, telling people not to swim. We do our best with education but you can only go so far.

"It's an ongoing process ... But we did pretty well."