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NARRATOR: On Bondi Rescue...
That kid's bloody lucky.
A race to save a drowning teenager.
Two seconds longer, he'd be dead.
We'll give it a go, eh?
Hoppo goes against his instincts, leading a tourist into a rip.
Now, I don't know if this guy is going to sink or swim.
This is totally putting my reputation on the line.
And what dangers lurk beneath the water at Bondi?
Suddenly I turn the corner and look behind me
and there's a big shark there.
I was definitely scared at that point,
and the heart was in the mouth.
SONG: # Take me back to the sweet times
# The hot nights
# Everything is going to be alright in the summertime
# Baby, in the summertime
# That is where I'll be. #
With Australia's borders back open,
tourists descend on Bondi from around the globe.
We are from Argentina.
We're from Fiji.
I'm from Greece.
We are from Morocco.
I'm from New York, and everyone should come to Bondi.
(CHEERING)
Lourdes is from Philippines.
She's back in Bondi after her first visit 20 years ago.
Can we get one more dance?
Most of the times when you start your shift,
you go down to the shoreline, check for rips.
Today, the start of the shift starts with a dance.
Oh! Oh, yes.
# La la la la la. #
(VOCALISES INDISTINCTLY)
(LAUGHS)
Yes!
Oh, you're beautiful. Come here.
During Bondi's summer migration,
international visitors sometimes display highly unusual behaviour.
Interfering with lifeguard equipment is not permitted.
In this case, it's difficult to police.
(LAUGHTER)
So, on the beach, we've got our emergency equipment,
we've got the boards, we've got the beach buggy and also the jet ski.
Members of the public, we don't want them near it or on them.
And the reason we have them all set up
is because we can respond really quickly.
(LAUGHTER)
(LAUGHS)
On this day the lifeguards decided not to engage with the lady
due to the circumstances
and waited till she left
and the buggy was then good to go.
Experiencing the joys of Bondi
is at the top of many people's bucket list.
Nice to meet you.
Dave is visually impaired and escaping the UK winter.
An eye operation five years ago went terribly wrong.
Yeah.
Despite overcast conditions, weekend crowds flock to the beach.
Protecting inexperienced swimmers is the lifeguards' first priority.
Sometimes the most dangerous parts of the beach
can appear deceptively calm.
We're being really vigilant down the southern end
due to the tricky conditions.
Outgoing tide. Bit of swell.
So, yeah, we just have to be really careful down there,
especially for the non-swimmers.
For one unsuspecting swimmer,
that warning has come too late.
As I was making the announcement,
there was one head that had just drifted off the sandbank
and then all of a sudden he was gone.
The swimmer is in a rip just 20 metres from shore.
A volunteer lifesaver heads in first.
The closer I get to this patient, the worse it's looking.
His eyes just looked so vacant
that it was almost like he was unconscious.
It just looks horrendous.
Will spots a drowning swimmer just 20 metres from shore.
All I could see was the top of his head.
My initial reaction was just... just go.
A volunteer lifesaver heads in first.
Will is seconds behind.
I get to the patient who's just being held up just by a clubbie
and the only thing going through my mind
is I've got to get him to shore as fast as possible.
The shock from the situation has left them
borderline unconscious and unresponsive.
I've just got to shake him and sort of hit him on the back just to...
..to wake him up and get him to come to.
It was kind of like waking up out of a really deep sleep,
except that deep sleep was almost a forever sleep.
The teenage boy is out of immediate danger,
but there could be a lethal complication.
Secondary drowning is a massive possibility for him.
Any amount of water that's on the lungs is quite severe.
You know, there's a high chance of death
if he's not monitored properly.
16-year-old Ataiah is from western Sydney.
Despite being a gifted athlete,
he was no match for the powerful rip.
The kid's suddenly like drowning a little bit.
Yeah, he didn't look like that he was like swimming properly.
So I went first responder there,
and then the blue ball, he came
and then we just got him out, yeah.
The first priority is to administer oxygen.
How are you feeling now? How are you feeling in your chest?
Do you feel like you want to throw up?
No, I don't. You don't?
Just a bit salty?
We're just going to give you just like another couple of minutes on this, yeah?
An oximeter will quickly determine
whether Ataiah has ingested water into his lungs.
Yeah? Yeah.
I'm just a bit worried about his oxygen.
Like, where his oxygen saturation level...
So, the oxygen in his blood should normally be sitting around 90s,
mid to high 90s.
But it's lower?
Well, the last time it showed up, it was 48.
So it's really, really low.
But the thing is, I'm worried about water on his lungs
and in his chest.
If his levels don't come up,
I kind of have an inclination to call an ambulance
just to have him checked over.
Because if he has water on his lungs
and you take him home and he falls asleep...
Yeah. You know...
He's gonna cough it out. Well, he could drown in his sleep.
Infection could be another complication.
Bacterial infection in the lungs can lead to pneumonia.
I had to be very firm and extremely honest with the uncle
about the severity of the situation that his nephew was just in,
purely because within a second it could turn.
Keep breathing. I don't want... Don't worry about talking.
I just want you to focus on your breathing, yeah?
I didn't want to let him out of my sight.
I had to keep watching him
because these minutes after the rescue,
these are key to the patient's survival.
Just going to wrap this around you, bud, so you stay nice and warm.
After 15 minutes, Ataiah's oxygen saturation returns to normal.
How are you starting to feel?
Starting to feel really good?
Alright, well, let's take this off and let's just get you standing up.
See how you're travelling, eh?
Yeah, you can take that off now, bud.
After that whole ordeal,
I was stoked to see him stand up and be a kid again.
I nearly drowned.
The water was getting too high and over my head.
So, like, I kept on swallowing water as well
and going down instead of up.
Sometimes even the fittest and healthiest
can't beat the power of a rip.
No worries. No worries.
It was just really bloody lucky
that that clubbie was out there,
because a couple of seconds more and he would have been dead.
So it was a good team effort.
Come on.
Hey, mate. Thanks, buddy. Well done.
Well done, eh? Good job.
COVID lockdowns may be over,
but there's an unforeseen consequence unfolding across Australia.
Nationwide, drowning deaths are the highest they've been
since 1996.
Water safety education came to a standstill during COVID.
Now lifeguard coordinator Hoppo
is promoting surf safety in three simple words.
Float to survive. Float to survive.
Float to survive? (LAUGHS) Float to survive.
What we were after was a simple message
and that was 'Float to survive'.
Float, stay calm and go with the flow of the water,
and that will take you to the sandbank
or where the waves are breaking,
which then will push you back to shore.
A common mistake people make when they're caught in a rip
is try to swim back to where they came from.
They get exhausted.
They start panicking.
Then they swallow water and then ultimately drown.
You know, it's not rips that kill you,
it's the panic.
Hoppo has enlisted a fellow lifeguard to help spread the word.
Wally has been a lifeguard at Bondi for six years.
He's a master in the water
and a dab hand with a brush.
Hoppo's message this summer is 'Float to survive'.
So I thought it'd be a good idea to do a mural for it
right in the middle of South Bondi.
I haven't done a mural before, so this is huge for me.
And to be able to do it at Bondi, where I work, pretty stoked.
Whoo!
To prove his theory actually works,
Hoppo recruits a random stranger.
My name is William Barjo, and I'm from Quebec, Canada.
Yeah, I'd say I'm a medium swimmer.
I don't lose many.
No? OK. Perfect. So you should be alright.
Yeah. That's reassuring. Really. (LAUGHS)
So this is where the rip is.
So, all the water's coming in
and all the water's got to go back out again.
It should take us across the back of there
and into where that whitewater is over in that spot there.
So if we just float,
then it should just naturally take us without using any energy.
OK. Alright?
Yeah. We'll give it a go, eh?
It's just occurred to me as I'm walking in the water,
I don't know who this guy is.
I don't know if this guy is going to sink or swim.
This is totally putting my reputation on the line.
Lifeguard coordinator Hoppo is risking his reputation.
He's going against his instincts and leading a tourist into a rip.
He's hoping to prove
'Float to survive'
actually works.
Yeah, people will probably say I'm crazy,
but, in my expert opinion,
people need to experience what it's like to be in a rip,
so when they're on their own, without me,
they can survive themselves.
As waves push water towards the shore,
it escapes back out to sea, causing a rip.
But rips often look deceptively calm
and can even trap experienced swimmers.
Step one - when you get to the point you can't stand up,
just relax and let the water take you across the beach.
Step two - as the rip takes you across,
gentle sculling keeps you afloat and you use very little energy...
..until eventually you reach the sandbar.
In less than a minute, the rip lands them back on their feet.
Step three - before you know it,
you're standing up on the sandbank
and walking safely back to shore.
What would you have done if no-one was here
and you were in a rip and you couldn't stand?
Yeah, I mean, first instinct, just to go straight in the line...
Straight back, yeah.
..just crawling maybe, pushing.
But I would have been exhausted so...
Yeah. So, you weren't even exhausted at all?
Nope. Yeah.
No. Just a day of swimming. (LAUGHS)
Well done.
Thank you, sir.
You survived on your own. Yeah.
You didn't even need a lifeguard. Yeah, I did. Yeah.
It's a bit counterintuitive, you know,
but it turns out
it's the best way to save your life.
I'm stoked the way the demonstration went.
My reputation is intact.
Late afternoon, the tide drops and the rips grow stronger.
ANDY: Guys... Hoppo's 'float to survive' message...
..listen to me.
..isn't getting through to everyone.
Guys, listen.
Go out in the rip.
Just let it take you out.
Float and relax,
and just go onto the bank on my right-hand side.
The swimmer and beginner surfer are working hard and going nowhere.
With the patient on board,
Andy paddles across the rip,
not against it.
What happens is the waves will wash you back onto that sandbank.
OK.
You were fighting against it the whole time.
If you just relax, float on your back,
go out and onto that sandbank,
it'll bring you back in.
Sorry, what was your name again? Andy.
Vanessa has lived in Australia 10 years.
Today was a long overdue lesson in surf safety.
That's like the strongest rip I've ever been in.
So just got stuck out there
and, yeah, luckily one of the lifeguards came to get us out of it.
But, yeah, it was a bit scary.
That's the perfect example on how people drown.
They try and fight the water.
Top Olympic swimmers struggle to swim against it.
And so unless you're extremely fit,
you're not going to make it back to shore
swimming into a rip.
(ALARM WAILS)
Rips aren't the only danger in the water.
(SIREN WAILS)
The last shark attack at Bondi was in 2009.
Surfer Glenn Orgias lost his hand after an attack at South End.
Did you feel like you were going to pass out or were you pretty calm?
I screamed, obviously. Yeah.
That was kind of the first thing that happened.
And then I just, you know...
..you just do your best in that situation to get in.
While shark attacks are rare,
shark sightings around Bondi are common.
Yeehoo!
Chase, Bondi's youngest full-time lifeguard,
lives and breathes the ocean.
Sharks are never far from his mind.
Surf at these beaches my whole life, it kind of becomes comfortable.
But once you start going out further and surfing on the points and reefs,
if I was to come face to face with a shark,
I would scream and paddle as fast as I could to get out of there.
Sharks are never far from his mind.
He's been invited on a shark dive
with Australian junior spearfishing champion Lara Puckeridge.
Lara and her brother Aaron, and Ian, the old man,
their family's known in Bondi as the gurus of the ocean.
So being able to go for a dive with Lara is a true honour for me. Ha.
I've seen some cool stuff.
Like, Aaron had his great white just off the point here.
Just metres from the Bondi shoreline,
Lara's brother Aaron
came face to face with a 3-metre great white.
His encounter made national news.
So, to start with, I thought it might have been a seal,
but then it did a big U-turn and came back towards me
and saw it was a massive great white shark.
Then it proceeded to circle me for the next five minutes.
The amount of times I've just gone for a swim thinking I'm safe there.
Wow.
That's what I do not want to run into.
Yeah. (BOTH LAUGH)
How do you just swim around a shark?
They're nowhere near as game
if you're with someone,
or if you stick your head out
because you're not making eye contact anymore.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They don't like eye contact.
Really? Alright. Well, glad to know that.
Hopefully I'll see it before it sees me.
Yeah. (BOTH LAUGH)
Lara's seen a lot of sharks in her time
and she's comfortable and confident around them.
I know I'm in good hands,
but I just hope there's not a great white out there.
Often it's mistaken identity when stuff like attacks do happen.
Yeah, well, that's good to know.
Part of me is excited,
part of me is very scared.
I just don't know what I'm going to run into.
There we go.
While shark attacks are rare,
shark sightings are relatively common around Bondi.
I'm so lucky to be out here with Lara.
Beautiful day. We got good visibility in the water.
But I'm just worried
we're going to run into something that might eat us.
Straightaway I just saw the biggest school of baitfish,
and there's a few kingfish lurking in amongst them.
And then we dive down
and you can see all the rocks and reef around us.
It's a breathtaking place to be.
But suddenly I turn the corner and look behind me,
and there's a big shark there.
I was definitely scared at that point
and the heart was in the mouth.
Looks like a great white,
but it's just a grey nurse,
so I'm very relieved.
The grey nurses are the Labradors of the sea,
they're very gentle, friendly giants.
And they've still got the big, sharp teeth and the scary look,
but, yeah, they're quite harmless.
Often mistaken for more dangerous sharks,
the grey nurse was almost hunted to extinction.
Now they are a protected species.
Amazing sight, pretty much right entering their front doorstep.
They're very welcoming and almost offered me a cup of tea.
Ooh.
Perfect. Perfect.
Yeah.
It's been an amazing day.
I never thought I'd be this comfortable swimming
with all these nice, big sharks,
and I was just glad to make it out alive.
Come in here. A first for Jackson.
This is the first time I've used this,
and I'm a bit nervous at this point.
And the search is on -
a man seen floating off Bondi's cliffs.
It's life or death.
Just miss it by a wave,
when you've got the ocean, when it's that rough.
Captions by Red Bee Media