Drownings at 6-year high
‘She’ll be right’ attitude will be the death of young men in our waters.
People are not listening, the message is not getting through and New Zealanders are drowning, Water Safety NZ says.
Thirty-one people have died since December 1 in drownings deemed preventable, the water safety body says. The last time numbers were this high was in 2011, when 35 people died.
The preventable toll excludes drownings from suicide, murder and motor vehicle accidents.
This summer’s toll includes seven people who died over five days in the lead-up to and on Waitangi Weekend.
“Water is part of Kiwis’ DNA, it’s part of our culture,” Water Safety NZ chief executive Jonty Mills said.
“[But] we need a culture change in this country around water. Similar to wearing seatbelts and drink driving.”
Young men aged 15-34 were particularly at risk, he said. Key factors were their high participation in water activities, a “she’ll be right” risk-taking attitude and the way men tended to overestimate abilities and underestimate dangers.
Males represent about 85 per cent of preventable drownings and are four times more likely than women to drown in New Zealand.
In an effort to reduce the number of young Kiwi males lost to drowning, Water Safety NZ and ACC this summer launched an awareness cam- paign called The Swim Reaper. The character, which resembles the Grim Reaper, appears on an Instagram account in images of waterways.
Mills said the message had been really successful in getting out there, but people’s behaviour was slow to change.
Drowning is the fourth highest cause of accidental death in New Zealand — after vehicle accidents, falls and poisoning, a Water Safety NZ study has found.
Almost one-third of preventable drownings occur in rivers.
Mills said rivers were high this summer because of heavy rainfall.
“Rivers are unpredictable and changeable, particularly after inclement weather.”
The recent spate of drownings include Lower Hutt teenager Rory Smith who died on February 2 after he was swept away by a swollen Hutt River, trying to rescue his friend who had fallen in.
His body was found washed up at Karaka Bay two days later.
On Waitangi Day 21-year-old Rachael De Jong drowned after being swept away on the Waikato River after the Aratiatia Dam floodgates opened.
A free diver died off the Otago Peninsula on February 3. Michael John Hodges, 35, was seen surfacing but then sank back under the waves.
Last Sunday four people died in water-related incidents.
A 70-year-old woman was swept out to sea while walking with her partner along the Kohaihai River, in Kahurangi National Park.
A 21-month-old boy drowned in a swimming pool in Makarau.
A 30-year-old man was pulled unconscious from Wellington Harbour at Eastbourne. He later died in hospital. And a male diver collapsed and died at Anaura Bay, north of Gisborne.
Numbers have hovered between 90 and 113 drownings a year for the past five years with 108 deaths in 2016.