PRIMED FOR THE SEASON

Head of NSRI’s Lifeguard Unit Stewart Seini tells us more about preparing for the upcoming season and where lifeguards will be on duty.

The NSRI’s Lifeguard Unit kicked off the season by attending the City of Cape Town’s Safety and Security festive season launch in Muizenberg. We were showcasing our lifeguarding and surf rescue capabilities by demonstrating our all-terrain vehicle, JetRIB, 6-inch croc, quad bikes and lifeguarding trailer. Our lifeguard trailer will once again be used by the City of Cape Town’s employed lifeguards to safeguard Table View Beach, where, up until the launch of the trailer in that location last year, there had been no lifeguards. Whereas 25% of the city’s annual fatal drownings used to take place there, this location has had zero fatal drownings since inception.

The volunteer lifeguard season began on the weekend of 6 November and volunteers will be on the beach every weekend and every public holiday until April next year. Station 18 (Melkbosstrand) will launch its lifeguard season by doing a paddle-out to commemorate all those who have lost their lives due to drowning.

We will also have a presence in Knysna this year at two Blue Flag beaches – Brenton-on-Sea and Buffels Bay, also known as ‘Buffs’ – from 1 December, extending to six other beaches from 15 December – Myoli, Sedgefield Mouth, Noetzie, Swartvlei, Knysna, Buffs Wild Side – as well as Karatara swimming pool.

New signage for the new season.

Helen Jordaan, Dr Zahid Badroodien, Vaughn Seconds, Stewart Seini, Nicki Whitehead and Mthetheleli Mdoda.

PREPARATIONS NSRI Lifeguard area manager Mike Wood has been hard at work training locals throughout the year, and ensuring that our current lifeguards undergo Sea Rescue training, as well as lifeguard fitness and rescue training so that every year our lifeguards come back to the beaches stronger and more efficient than before. The lifeguards have been doing voluntary beach duty on Buffs and other high-risk beaches in the Knysna area to ensure they are prepared for the season, understand the hazards on their beaches and are able to operate around them, and to make sure that the beaches are safe for the public, even when we aren’t contractually obligated to be on the beach. Our first priority will always be beach safety and ensuring that we are there to assist anyone in trouble.

Our lifeguards in the area will also be performing voluntary lifeguard duty on Wilderness Beach every weekend up until the beginning of December, when lifeguards from the George Municipality wil be activated on that beach. We will resume our duty there after January, when the muni- cipality’s lifeguards stand down. This enables our lifeguards to operate and be comfortable in different highly hazardous locations, and because Wilderness is a beach where the risk of drowning is high, particularly on weekends, we are ensuring once again that beach safety and the safety of the public come first.

In Strandfontein, Matzikama, we have a lifeguard team on the beach every weekend, and from 15 December (or before, if the town starts getting busy earlier than expected), we will have a full team of lifeguards on the beach every day. This is our first rescue station where lifeguards and rescue crew are one and the same. The lifeguards have a quad bike and a JetRIB on this highly dangerous beach, and train regularly to make sure they are capable of rescuing anyone in any surf conditions.

In the Saldanha area, we will be operational on five beaches from 15 December: Saldanha, Hoedjiesbaai, Paternoster, St Helena and Leentjiesklip. The lifeguards here have been training throughout the year in order to be ready for the season.

New signage for the new season.

We will also be operational in Lamberts Bay and Elands Bay, and at Clanwilliam Dam. The lifeguards here also have been training throughout the year.

We have been busy training up volunteer lifeguards at Kei Mouth (Morgan Bay) and Mdumbi along the Wild Coast.

TECH ADVANCES

This year has also been quite exciting on the technology front. The lifeguards will be using a new lifeguard app that was developed by Stewart Seini. This app allows the lifeguards to log when they’re on duty and record incidents, preventions, equipment checklists, risk assessments, beach statistics and training. Area managers have a dashboard version of the beaches under their responsibility, so they can view in real time who is on duty, which units are operational and the status of the operational equipment, as well as the situation on the beach. This enables them to make decisions such as allocating additional personnel or equipment resources.

The Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) at NSRI head office has a dashboard that is able to view all of our lifeguarded areas, allowing it to provide additional support and backup at our lifeguarded beaches. Our management and support structures are what makes our NSRI lifeguards so efficient in their duties, and being able to monitor our beaches in real time from various locations allows us to manage the efficiency of our operations from anywhere. lifeguards here also have been training throughout the year.

NEW SIGNAGE We are also using new beach signage this year. These include movable warning signs placed directly in front of rip currents and 3m high dolphin flags to indicate safe swimming areas, as well as dangerous conditions signs to be placed along the beach at places where the conditions are too dangerous for swimming. We will also use 3m x 1m curtain signs to remind people always to swim between the red and yellow flags, to state that the conditions are dangerous, or to use as a privacy barrier when conducting emergency medical treatment in busy public areas.

Our readiness-for-season training has also intensified. We have appointed Rebecca Carter-Smith as the new lifeguard training coordinator to ensure that the high standards of our NSRI lifeguard training are maintained. In addition, we have been putting a lot more attention on building stronger teams. Here, we focus on leadership training and providing our lifeguards with all the training and tools they need.

We strive to be professional surf rescuers with a purpose to lead by example.

Moreover, we have made our medical treatment training as realistic as possible by creating simulations and scenarios that mimic real emergencies under high stress.

This way, our lifeguards are ready for any possible medical emergency, and are able to use the extensive range of basic life-support equipment we give them to save lives in and out of the water.