MIRACLE MONDAY IN OYSTER BAY

PINK BUOYS

MIRACLE MONDAY in Oyster Bay

Being in the right place at the right time made all the difference in the rescue of two youngsters from a deadly rip. That, and a pink buoy. By Cherelle Leong

SITTING DOWN AT HIS desk in his home office, Lodewyk van Rensburg, Statcom of Station 36 (Oyster Bay), was not having the Monday he’d planned. Seeing as his meetings at Tsitsikamma and Kromme River had both been postponed, he figured he might as well catch up on some admin. Lodewyk started reviewing the correspondence on the proposed site for the new Sea Rescue base. He knew the site well, but the other decision makers didn’t. And so he decided he’d drive to the property to take some photographs so that the others could see the terrain. As he was getting into his personal bakkie, the thought crossed his mind to take the Sea Rescue vehicle instead. If it wasn’t driven every four to five days, the battery would go flat, and this was Sea Rescue business after all, so he went back inside and swopped keys before heading out.

On his way to the site, Lodewyk’s phone beeped with a WhatsApp message. Gerlinde Kerling, one of the local coast watchers, had messaged him to report that some children on the beach were playing with the pink rescue buoy. Immediately alarm bells

went off in Lodewyk’s head. He knew Sea Rescue worked closely with the local community and had run extensive workshops on water safety and the purpose of the pink buoy. It hadn’t been touched in the 18 months since it had been installed. The children wouldn’t simply play with the pink buoy – something was definitely up! By this time he was 400m from the beach, and he diverted straight onto the dunes. As Lodewyk reached the beach, he spotted a young local, Ricardo Kettledas, emerging from the waves carrying a teenager, and drove straight towards them. Lodewyk wasted no time in getting out of the vehicle and assessing the casualty. He was unconscious but breathing on his own, with a regular pulse. While Lodewyk was doing the assessment, he was told that a second teenager had gone under the water. Confident that the first teenager would be okay, he placed him on his side in the recovery position and asked the children to stay with him.

Lodewyk was certain of two things: he needed to find the second teenager in the water fast, and he needed the back-up of his Sea Rescue crew. He activated an urgent callout, telling everyone to come to the beach as quickly as possible. While sending out the message, Lodewyk scanned the beach, looking for the rip current. Discarding his shirt and shoes, he ran into the water.

Ricardo followed Lodewyk back in, taking along the pink rescue buoy, and waited in a slightly shallower area on a sandbank just out of the current. Thanks to good visibility, Lodewyk spotted the child in about 3 metres of water, about 1 metre from the bottom, being pulled out to sea. Wasting no time, he dived down to retrieve him before swimming him back to the sandbar, where Ricardo was waiting with the buoy.

The child was pale, had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. Using the buoy for support, Lodewyk and Ricardo swam him back to the beach together. As soon as it was shallow enough, Lodewyk started CPR.

The other children ran down to meet them and helped carry the child up onto dry sand. Lodewyk continued with CPR. He tasked some of the kids

with bringing the other teenager to where he was so that he could keep an eye on both casualties. He sent another group to his vehicle to retrieve the medical kit and oxygen cylinders, as well as his phone, so he could confirm the call for an ambulance. He knew he’d have to continue with CPR until the paramedics arrived, and because he knew the child had been underwater for some time, he was also aware that his efforts might be in vain. But after about 12 minutes, the teenager coughed up some water. Lodewyk turned him on his side as he felt for a pulse. There it was, faint but steady! The youngster started to breathe on his own. Dared Lodewyk hope the CPR had been successful? In the meantime Sea Rescue crew started arriving and helped rig up the oxygen cylinders. Both casualties received a maximum dose of oxygen while they were waiting for the paramedics to arrive.

Both children remained unconscious, but the first child was responsive to stimuli, whereas the second had a pulse and was breathing on his own, although he wasn’t responding to any stimulus. As Lodewyk watched

the ambulance load and take the two children off to hospital, he knew it was now a waiting game. The first child, Carlo stood a good chance of making a full recovery as he’d been pulled from the water quickly by Ricardo, using the pink rescue buoy. But by Lodewyk’s estimates the second child, Morris, had been under the water for at least 10 to 15 minutes, and it had taken a further 12 minutes of CPR before he regained a pulse. Despite all the rescue efforts, the medical statistics were against him. Carlo woke up in hospital that evening around 6pm and, miraculously, Morris woke up the next morning around 11am, fully aware and asking for his mother. Over the next three days, Morris was monitored for after-effects of drowning and sent for tests. No sign of any damage was found at all, and except for having no memory of the events and feeling tired, he was otherwise healthy. His full recovery baffled the doctors, From left: Tilla Strydom, Smiley Strydom, Ricardo Kettledas, Lodewyk van Rensburg, Morris Dosela, Carlo Kettledas, Alwyn Barbas and Choppie Lindstrom.

because for all intents and purposes he’d been dead for 20 minutes. But three days later, defying all odds, he walked out of the hospital and seven days later he was in his classroom, starting Grade 8 at school.

When Lodewyk reflects on that day, he can only describe it as a miracle. He wasn’t planning to be in the area and he usually wouldn’t have been driving the Sea Rescue vehicle that contained the medical kit and oxygen cylinders that had been so vital in treating the casualties on the scene. In addition, it was Ricardo’s bravery going into the surf, despite not being a good swimmer himself, and having the wisdom to take along the pink rescue buoy, thereby catching the eye of the coast watcher who alerted Sea Rescue, that saved two lives that day. A miracle Monday indeed.