industry lifeguard Snippets
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lifeguard Snippets Bondi Lifeguards Turning the Cameras Around to Save Lives Impact Four cameras based at Sydney’s Bondi, Bronte and Tamarama beaches have been installed with the capability of zooming in for 3 km. The cameras are controlled from the Bondi lifeguard tower, allowing the lifeguards to monitor the non-patrolled beaches’ water year-round during Bondi Beach patrol hours. Lifeguard Supervisor Bruce Hopkins said the cameras were partly inspired by the Bondi Rescue TV series. ‘We thought if they can record everything we do, why can’t we?’ In July 2014, a surfer and father of two drowned after he was swept onto the rocks at Tamarama in Sydney. The new technology will allow lifeguards to react more quickly to life-threatening situations.
Wyong Council Considers Lifeguard Patrols for Remote Birdie Beach at Lake Munmorah Lifeguard services could eventually be introduced at Birdie Beach on the northern outskirts of Wyong Shire in New South Wales. Wyong Mayor Doug Eaton says the matter of introducing surf patrols at Birdie Beach came out of the Future Growth discussion paper, which forecasts huge population growth in that part of the shire. ‘This growth won’t happen overnight, but we need to get the ball rolling and make sure we have the right services and systems in place to meet the needs of our growing community,’ Cr Eaton says.
‘Guardian Drone’ Being Researched by Uni Students Two PhD students from the University of Wollongong have invented a drone that has the ability to save lives. Leo Stevens and Nicholas Roach designed the ‘Guardian Drone’ to carry and drop a flotation device to swimmers in distress at sea. ‘We custom built a housing which allowed the rescue tube to be fixed to the bottom of the drone and released on command using a radio signal,’ explains Stevens. He says he came up with the idea after working as a lifeguard for several years. ‘My work as a lifeguard put me into situations where I saw a need for some way to deliver a tube to a swimmer in trouble, preferably without putting a lifeguard in danger...’ The invention won an award in the University of Wollongong’s Innovation Works! competition.
The Wave Brings You into the World of Big Wave Surfers Susan Casey’s book The Wave captures colossal, ship-swallowing waves, and the surfers and scientists who seek them out. For legendary surfer Laird Hamilton, 100-ft waves represent the ultimate challenge. As Casey travels the globe, hunting these monsters of the ocean with Hamilton’s crew, she witnesses first-hand the life-or-death stakes, the glory, and the mystery of impossibly mammoth waves. Yet for the scientists who study them, these waves represent something truly scary brewing in the planet’s waters. With inexorable verve, The Wave brilliantly portrays human beings confronting nature at its most ferocious. Buy it and read it in your lunch break—it’s easy to read and provides an awesome insight from pro surfer and scientist perspectives (I had to share it, Ed.).
60 Australian Lifeguard Magazine 10 th edition
Evaluation of Swim N Survive, India A grant from the Australian Sports Commission has been received to evaluate the primary causes for drowning among at-risk communities in Kerala, India, and the current impact of the Swim N Survive program. The research is being conducted by Rashtriya Life Saving Society India and SLSA. Results from 300 questionnaires are now being evaluated in India and the data will be analysed by SLSA. The experience from this evaluation can benefit other locations with similar levels of development and similar burdens of child drowning.
Summer’s Next Big Wave Comes to Fox Sports In what is the biggest television deal in the history of surf life saving, FOX SPORTS launched a new, weekly series titled Summer of Surf on Saturday, 29 November. Showcasing Australia’s largest surf sport events, the series began with the iconic 2014 Coolangatta Gold and will culminate in late April with the 2015 Australian Surf Life Saving Championships. Summer of Surf will be broadcast over 23 weeks, in a landmark agreement that will reinvigorate the sport.
Byron Bay to Get Lifeguards Year-round as Shark Attack Fear Takes Hold In northern New South Wales, Byron Bay visitors are deserting the beach and some locals remain ‘jittery’ following a number of recent shark-related incidents. Since a fatal shark attack on 9 September, the Byron Shire Council has agreed to fund lifeguards on patrol year-round and expand flagged areas in the region. ‘This was a very rare tragedy in the ocean,’ says the Northern Region Lifeguard Coordinator Scott McCartney. ‘We have had some public sightings of sharks and we investigated. Some people are still a bit jittery. We do have a lot of dolphins and marine life off Byron Bay but it is better to be safe than sorry.’ McCartney says extra patrols would be rolled out over the summer holidays.
SLSA’s Tsunami Project Receives National Award
Manly Nippers Test Wristbands for Emergency Information In Sydney, the Manly Life Saving Club is trialling wristbands for nippers, swimmers and surfers that quickly provide critical information in the case of an emergency. The club is conducting a pilot of Safe Mate, a waterproof silicone wristband that contains a near-field communications (NFC) chip that does not require charging. Wristband wearers upload their emergency contact and medical information to the Safe Mate website. In an emergency, first responders can access the information by scanning the user’s wristband with an NFC-compatible Android smartphone running the Safe Mate Professional app. Safe Mate founder Ewan Le Bourhis says he hopes to bring the wristband to every beach in New South Wales in 2015.
Surf Life Saving Australia has been recognised nationally at the 2014 Resilient Australia Awards in Canberra. The online resource Tsunami: The Ultimate Guide, which was produced in collaboration with the Australian Tsunami Advisory Group, was Highly Commended in the Projects of National Significance category. It was one of 23 projects chosen from 160 entries received across Australia.
Is this Purple Jellyfish a New Species?
Tsunami: The Ultimate Guide is a comprehensive, interactive resource produced by the experts in tsunami in Australia. It presents authoritative and engaging information in a highly visual manner. www.emknowledge.gov.au/connect/tsunami-the-ultimate-guide/#/
Newcastle Lifeguard Warren Smith Retires After 40 Years After almost 40 years on the city’s beaches, or 71,136 hours on official duty, Warren ‘Smithy’ Smith packed up the flags for the last time in September. ‘I feel very grateful for being able to meet so many beautiful people,’ Smith says. Smith was a volunteer on Newcastle Beach before the council decided to start paying him a casual wage in 1975. He’s been permanently stationed at Nobbys for the past 38 years. He saw the Sygna run aground at Stockton in 1974, and then the Pasha Bulker in 2007, and has been involved in countless surf rescues. Now 61, Smithy was a founding member of Surfest, a local surfing festival, and is credited with bringing the city’s surfing fraternity together with lifesavers, who became known as lifeguards from the late 1990s.
A bright purple, alien-like jellyfish washed up on Coolum Beach over winter and an expert says it may be a new species. Sunshine Coast lifeguard Jamie Smith says a local fisherman alerted him and his partner to the discovery after pulling the sea creature up on to the beach to avoid getting stung. ‘The thing that struck me was how long the tentacles are and the colour,’ Smith says. ‘It was so vibrant and pure.’ Jellyfish expert Lisa Gershwin says it is probably a new species. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ she says. ‘And honestly, being purple it alerts me to the fact that it might be a new species. I think it’s a better than even chance that it’s new to science.’ 10 th edition Australian Lifeguard Magazine 61