It’s time to stop Kiwis drowning
Swimming ability, water safety education and lifejackets should be at core of campaign to reduce terrible toll
We have been reminded summer is here in that most unfortunate but sadly regular manner, as the drowning toll starts to rise. So far, we have Hot Water Beach, Ma¯ ori Bay, the Kawarau River in Central Otago, and a backyard pool as the locations of unnecessary tragedy.
As the Christmas holiday season approaches, it is appropriate to reflect again on our horrific drowning toll. In 2017, we lost 104 people to drowning. Males comprised 78 per cent of the total, and Ma¯ ori and Pacific Islanders 24 per cent. Asians comprise a disproportionate 13 per cent of victims. It shouldn’t be a surprise, as many of them grow up in environments away from moving water.
In the past three years 324 people have drowned. That’s around one-third of the number who have died on our roads. Our road safety campaigns have relentlessly focused on three simple errors: speed, alcohol and seatbelts.
Drowning is no different. The great majority of drownings would not occur if people were competent swimmers, were able to identify dangerous waters, and were wearing lifejackets at the time of an incident.
Most Kiwis, when asked, will say they can swim. They would probably say they can swim to save themselves. But how are those same people really feeling after swimming for 60 seconds against the current? The reality is they can’t.
Swimming across the school pool is a different proposition to swimming 100 metres in moving water. Simply put, to save yourself, you don’t just need to be able to swim, but fit enough to swim hard, in difficult waters, for a couple of minutes.
A lack of water safety education is at the centre of people making bad decisions. Despite being a lifeguard for 40 years, I remain constantly surprised by the propensity of people to go into dangerous water with no knowledge of the risk.
A few years ago I was at Mount Maunganui when the surf conditions were the most dangerous I had seen in the many years it has been my “home beach”. As I stood near the source of an enormous rip I saw a woman in her mid-30s standing knee-deep just 20m away. She held the hands of her two young daughters.
On that same day, just a kilometre or so down the beach, a top surf swimmer had to be rescued from the treacherous conditions. If this woman had let go of the hand of one of her daughters, she would not have seen the child again.
I ran over to her and asked her to get out of the water as quickly as possible. Once on the beach I explained the danger. The woman had no idea she was standing in water more dangerous than I had ever seen on an east coast beach.
If you go down to the harbour on a weekend, you are guaranteed to see a group of people, usually men, overloading a small boat, and heading out for a few hours fishing. Very seldom do those people have lifejackets on board their boats, let alone around their necks. Sadly, I have pulled a number of deceased people out of boat wrecks, including children. There is always a common thread. Out on the water at the wrong time, in bad conditions and without lifejackets.
Just as the messages about speeding, drinking and seatbelts, are critical to managing our road toll, we need to get the messages about swimming ability, water safety education and lifejackets to Kiwis before this summer’s statistics start rolling in. Unfortunately, water safety receives less than one 20th of the funding road safety does. So, we need to be smart about getting that message out.
But we also have to look in the right places. Last summer we heard reports of a Coastguard vessel pulling over and fining a young surf life saver on a surf ski for not wearing a lifejacket. And we’ve all witnessed the needless and heavy handed (not to mention expensive) tactics employed by some councils in policing swimming pool fencing. Putting your attention into pool fences and fining surf ski paddlers is like the road police ploughing all their resources into country roads in Southland.
So, before this summer takes hold, please share these comments with your neighbour or your fishing mate. Or that lady who takes her kids down to the ocean on a rough day. And perhaps take yourself and your kids down to the local pool and swim a couple of hundred metres.
It really is up to us to stay safe in the water.
Bruce Cotterill is a life member of the Omanu Beach Surf Life Saving Club at Mount Maunganui, and chairman of Swimming NZ.