Young lifeguards lucky to escape injury as rocks fall
Rookie lifeguards were caught in a rockfall when Sunday’s earthquake struck.
Taylors Mistake Surf Life Saving Club rookie life guard Mac Scott, 13, was hit by rocks and was lucky to walk away with just a few cuts while on patrol during Sunday’s earthquake.
‘‘Rocks were falling down and all we saw were massive clouds of dust,’’ the teenager said.
Mac and four other young lifeguards, aged 12 and 13, had decided to brave some cliff jumping, under the supervision of an adult, because ‘‘nothing was happening’’ at the beach.
They had climbed up the Giant’s Eye cliff face to a cove and were ready to jump the 2 metres into the sea when the quake hit.
‘‘We were on the rocks and we had to move in to a cove. It felt weird. It was just shaking and we just sprinted into the cove.’’
Rocks and boulders rained down on Mac and one of his friends as they clambered up the face. He received a ‘‘few cuts’’ and felt ‘‘ok’’ about the ordeal. While he raced to safety, another friend ‘‘dived right down’’ into the sea to escape the rocks.
The club’s inflatable rescue boat (IRB), which had been in the water while the group cliff jumped, was used to scour the cliff faces around Taylors Mistake soon after the quake and confirmed nobody had been injured.
Mac’s sister and life guard Georgia Scott, 16, was on a board in the water at Taylors Mistake when the earthquake struck. She said it was ‘‘terrifying’’ and ‘‘felt weird’’. Looking back to the hill, she could see ‘‘lots of dust’’.
She said many of the shaken beachgoers immediately left.
A Taylors Mistake resident, who did not want to be named, said he saw a lot of dust and debris after the cliff collapsed. He frequently walked the path along Whitewash Head and said there was a ‘‘huge crack’’ in the cliff after a previous earthquake, which had probably ‘‘fallen into the sea’’.
Council engineers and police were checking in with people and inspecting cliffside properties in Scarborough.