Water rescue ‘in the nick of time’
‘‘Natural instinct’’ kicked in for an Australian tourist when he saw someone yelling for help from a rip at Christchurch’s Scarborough Beach.
Dion Depace, 22, rescued one of two people who got into trouble at the beach, in the suburb of Sumner, about 1.30pm yesterday.
The two men were swimming with a group of colleagues when they were caught in the rip.
They and their employer, who swallowed water while also assisting in their rescue, were taken to Christchurch Hospital.
Depace was in Christchurch on holiday from Melbourne with a group of friends after graduating from university.
They were swimming at the beach when someone pointed towards a man ‘‘just kind of lying’’ in the water further out and ‘‘struggling’’.
Depace said ‘‘natural instinct’’ kicked in and he swam out to reach the man. The water was over his head when he reached him.
‘‘I went out there. I’m pretty tall . . . I couldn’t touch the bottom.’’
He knew it was ‘‘not good’’. He grabbed the man and started getting him to shallow water. In the meantime ‘‘he was pulling me under’’, Depace said.
Depace got him to where he could touch the ground, then he let go.
‘‘If I didn’t let go I probably would have drowned because I’d inhaled a bit of water.’’
He asked a friend for help, who carried the man until he could walk on the beach. ‘‘It was pretty scary.’’
James O’Caiside, the employer of the two men caught in the rip, said they were in the water when he arrived and started surfing.
The men were about 50 metres past any other swimmers when O’Caiside heard them calling for help.
He paddled out, got one of them onto his surfboard and headed for shore.
When he thought he was far enough in, O’Caiside stopped to let the man off so he could go back for his other employee.
But the man became ‘‘panicked’’ and got pulled back. O’Caiside managed to shout to another swimmer to help him before the Australians arrived and brought him to shore.
‘‘If there hadn’t been three groups of strong swimmers around, they wouldn’t have made it back to the beach alive.’’
After going back into shore to get help for the man still further out, O’Caiside rushed back into the water.
He thought he was fine but later started vomiting on the beach, and was taken to hospital to recover.
The second man was rescued by Aaron Lock, the owner of Sumner business Learn to Surf.
He spotted the struggling swimmers on a break between lessons, ‘‘grabbed’’ his surfboard and rushed out to the man.
Lock said when he arrived, the man was ‘‘pretty scared’’ but still conscious.
He pulled him onto his board and took him to shore where the man seemed to go into a state of shock and was drifting ‘‘in and out of consciousness’’.
‘‘I think we got to him in the nick of time. That’s the closest we’ve come to someone not making it,’’ Lock said.
A Canterbury District Health Board spokeswoman said the three people were in a comfortable condition.
Surf Life Saving New Zealand southern region manager Stu Bryce said the incident was a reminder for people to swim within their limits.
Volunteer life savers began weekend patrols at popular beaches around Christchurch from November 18.
Daily patrols, sponsored by Christchurch City Council Waimakariri District Council, from December 18 to January 26. the and ran