Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Star golfer rescued in KZN sea drama
BRITISH professional golfer Charlotte Austwick, a fellow Norwegian player and their caddy nearly drowned during a night swim in the sea.
The golfers were swimming off Margate’s Marina Beach close to San Lameer Country Club in KwaZulu Natal on Monday night where they were participating in the South African Sunshine Ladies Tour.
Austwick, 27, from York, only escaped near death thanks to the owner of Mariners Seafood Restaurant who heard frantic screams for help.
At the time the golfers were fighting for their lives in deadly rip currents that often result in drownings off South African beaches.
The first Good Samaritans onto the beach struggled to locate the screams from the dark. “We could hear they were frantic but we couldn’t see a thing until we got a torch from a nearby security guard,” said restaurant owner Jon Caple, 53.
Once he and manager Bruce Simpson, 55, located the three distressed swimmers about 80 metres out to sea a bystander, believed to be an offduty lifeguard named Prince, grabbed the pink National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) rescue buoy permanently stationed on the beach and swam out to the Norwegian golfer who kept disappearing beneath the water.
Restaurant owner Jon Caple, 53, hesitated before swimming out to Austwick without a rescue buoy.
“I’m not that fit or that good a swimmer. But I could hear Charlotte screaming and screaming for help and knew that she was panicking and would die within minutes if I didn’t get out there.”
Caple, a lifeguard in his youth, flung himself into the rip current and quickly reached Austwick. “I grabbed her hand and told her not to fight the current and to try and stay afloat because it’s exhaustion that drowns you.
“I could see then that if I hadn’t reached her she would have drowned without a doubt. She was really struggling. She must have been in the water for at least 10 minutes before I got to her.”
Knowing he could not swim Austwick to safety on his own, Caple remained calm, ever wary that she might panic again and drag him under with her.
“All I could see were the torches on the beach. There was nothing else to do but to tread water, keep her calm and hope and pray that help would arrive.”
A restaurant diner eventually swam out to them with the NSRI rescue buoy. “We were treading water for about five minutes but it felt like an hour,” said Caple. ‘Once we got Charlotte onto the buoy I told her to hang onto it for dear life and kick like hell every time the swell came through.”
Austwick reached the beach while her South African caddy was being rescued by NSRI rescue swimmers who had arrived on the scene.