Grief at balcony plunge
SCHOOLIES volunteers have travelled to Sydney to console the schoolmates of a teenager who fell and died from a balcony on the Gold Coast last week.
Red Frogs founder Andy Gourley was with the family of Hamish Bidgood as they arrived on the Gold Coast and said volunteers had continued to offer support when they returned home.
“Because our team for week two is from NSW and Victoria, they’ve actually been down around the school,” he said.
“It’s a very tough time. Our teams have been supporting the family and their friends as much as possible.”
Mr Bidgood fell 11 storeys from the Surf Regency building last Thursday. The 18year-old is believed to have been ingesting nitrous oxide, or “nangs”, before his death.
The Red Frogs will focus on more safety education in the southern states ahead of next year’s Schoolies, amid teething problems with interstate school-leavers.
“There’s less awareness around calling triple-0 for your mate if they find themselves in trouble, sometimes in week two they’re concerned about paying for ambulances because they’re not covered like Queenslanders are,” Mr Gourley said.
“The public drinking is a big thing, in Surfers (Paradise) you can’t drink in public whereas a lot of areas in other states you can, there’s also more glass bottles in rooms during week two which we don’t recommend.”
While he wouldn’t back a strict balcony ban at Gold Coast hotels in 2019, Mr Gourley said better awareness would form part of the education rolled out to high schools next year.