MAN: The most famous crescent of sand in the world...
(ALARM BLARES)
..is also one of the most dangerous.
Shark! Coming, I'm coming, I'm coming!
Go, go, go, go, go! WOMAN: Help me!
Let go of the board!
On Bondi Beach, every day is a matter of life or death.
Get as high as you can. MAN: (ON RADIO) Yeah, probably...
For Bondi's elite team of lifeguards...
Hang on!
..it's the biggest season in a decade.
MAN: Rescue after rescue after rescue.
Shit!
Headaches...
Where are your parents?
They've just left the kids. ..heartbreak...
(GIRL SCREAMS) ..deep wounds...
MAN: It was the worst I've ever seen.
..and deadly surprises.
MAN: The most venomous creature here at Bondi.
I caught it!
Whatever is thrown their way...
What the hell?
Oh, my God, he's still wearing socks.
..this band of brothers lives by one motto...
Thank you. Saved my life.
..every swimmer goes home safe.
My friend is alive!
This time on Bondi Rescue -
a man pulled unresponsive from the surf...
No pulse, no breathing, no signs of life.
..and... Hello.
..Reidy's back... I hope you're a good swimmer.
..blowing a lot of hot air.
(BREATHES INTO RADIO)
Ta-ta-ta!
# Take me back to the sweet times
# The hot nights
# Everything is gonna be alright
# In the summertime
# Baby, in the summertime
# That is where I'll be. #
It's Bondi's biggest summer in years.
Hot, clear days have sent crowd numbers through the roof.
We love Bondi!
More people means more rescues.
Make sure you stay right in the middle of the flags.
Stay nice and close to shore where you can stand.
Bondi's rescue hotspots are the South End
and the notorious Backpackers' Rip,
with Central and North Bondi considered much safer.
This afternoon, nowhere is safe.
Walk straight in and down to the red and yellow flag.
The entire kilometre-long beach has become a lifeguard's nightmare.
A strong outgoing tide causing several powerful rips.
We had probably...
I think it was seven to eight rips across the beach.
It was pretty much one of the most dangerous days I've seen at Bondi,
in probably over 10 years.
Troy.
Straight in front, buddy.
Quick as you can.
(CHATTER ON RADIO)
There was a gentleman floating across the bank,
head down.
I was waiting for him to put his head up and take a breath of air
and do some movement,
and then he didn't move.
(HORN HONKS)
By the time Noah arrives,
Troy has already joined the rescue effort.
And when I got there,
a member of the public's taken our lifeguard board out.
And was trying to put him onto the board
so they could carry him back to shore.
He's foaming from the mouth.
And I could see no signs of life.
I was pretty much the last person to get a handle on the board
and help carry him in.
KC's role is to set up the defibrillator,
but he can't leave the tower unattended.
In that situation, we were lucky we had Jack
who could take over the tower.
Off-duty Jack is suddenly in the hot seat.
Yeah.
To be just thrown into the tower, it was, you know, 0 to 100 for me.
Keep going, keep going, keep going!
When a major incident happens,
you kind of know your roles straight from the start.
So, while we're out in the water,
KC's getting all the defib and oxygen ready.
A defibrillator monitors the heart and, if needed, delivers
a powerful electric shock to get it back into normal rhythm.
He was probably around about 160 to 180 kilos.
Seeing it was low tide and he's been washed onto that shallow bank,
it was a lot easier for us to get back in.
Otherwise, I don't know how we would have got him back in.
Put him down, put him down!
No-one knows what happened
or how long the man was face down in the water.
Every second is critical. MAN: He's breathing.
So, we've rolled him onto his side.
No, he's not.
We've drained the fluids out.
Check his pulse.
A bystander says he's a medical professional
and tries to take control of the situation.
MAN: OK. OK, you can do. Yeah.
Troy is having none of it.
We can't be sure that this person is a doctor.
So what we do is trust the training that we've been put through.
23, 24, 25.
And we also know that we can work well as a team
to bring this person back to life.
KC dries the patient's body
so Noah can attach the defibrillator pads.
My role was to look after the head, make sure the airways were open.
When you've got a big patient, you know, it can be quite difficult.
You've got to use a lot of your strength.
And I would have broken one or two ribs
just to get the oxygen pumping around
to try to kick-start the brain and the heart.
They can't touch the patient in case the defib delivers
its strong electric shock.
(PEOPLE TALK INDISTINCTLY, DEFIB MACHINE GIVES VOICE UPDATES)
With Troy, KC and Noah all on the resus,
there's only one other lifeguard for the whole beach.
JACK: It was super dangerous, lots of rips running.
Will was 200m away.
We could have another five people drowning at once.
At that moment, Will has got problems of his own at North Bondi.
There's people in dangerous spots
while everybody's focused on the resus.
I made the call.
(ALARM BLARES)
There are rare occasions where we can use a shark alarm
for something else,
such as clearing the water for a mass rescue or a first aid.
Alright? Make sure it's dry.
Troy starts another two-minute round of CPR.
Don't worry about the radio.
The patient's body spasms.
When you're doing compressions on someone,
there's electrical currents
trying to pump the blood and oxygen through the body.
It can be body spasms.
It can give a false sense
that the person is actually conscious and alive.
In this case, he was definitely still unconscious.
Before this resuscitation, I've had a pretty big day.
I've done numerous amounts of rescues across the beach.
And so you're quite exhausted already.
DEFIB MACHINE: Continue.
It's quite hard on the body to press on someone at that size.
With KC managing the airways,
I figured that it was just going to have to be me to swap over.
It's been nearly five years of working down here,
and this is my first resus.
There's foam coming out of his mouth,
no pulse, no breathing.
It's pretty intense.
A man has been pulled lifeless from dangerous surf.
No pulse, no breathing.
23, 24, 25.
There's foam coming out of his mouth.
It's pretty intense.
DEFIB MACHINE: Continue.
It's Noah's turn to step up.
It's been nearly five years of working down here,
and the time has come.
It's his first resus.
The defib puts out a metronome.
You just follow that beat for the compression.
But the background noise
and the adrenaline and the chaos of it all, I just couldn't hear it.
So I just had the song by the Bee Gees,
Stayin' Alive, in my head.
OK, one take.
It's perfectly in time, which is really ironic.
Finally, a sign
that their desperate efforts aren't in vain.
I could just start seeing a little bit of a rise and fall
in his stomach.
We've rolled him onto his side into the recovery position,
and the whole crowd starts clapping.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) I'm trying.
It just shows that there is a lot more awareness out in the public.
They knew he was conscious,
they knew we've got him back to life.
We've done it.
DEFIB MACHINE: Continue.
Once you see that person open their eyes,
you definitely get a bit of goose bumps through your body.
Like, you just... Yeah, you...
It's a great feeling.
It's... There's nothing better.
(SIREN BLARES)
(CAR HORN BLARES)
When the paramedics arrive,
we've done what we can do to give this patient
the best chance of survival.
PARAMEDIC: We just need your arm.
Lifeguards have no time to rest or reflect on what's just unfolded...
Get out of the water.
Don't swim here.
..other lives are still at risk up and down the beach.
I've just got to reset this beach
and make sure no-one else is going to drown,
or something else will happen on the beach.
The patient from Sydney is thought to have suffered a medical episode
in the surf.
He has since made a full recovery.
JACK: I don't know if there's ever going to be a textbook resus...
..but I feel like we got pretty close that day.
Working in first aid, we learn about the chain of survival.
Early recognition - so, we saw the patient very quickly,
early access to advanced medical care,
which, you know, we got him onto the ambulance straightaway,
early CPR and early defibs.
As the chain of survival goes, it was pretty good.
(APPLAUSE)
I'm really happy that my first resus was a positive outcome.
(PEOPLE TALK INDISTINCTLY)
KC: You reset the kits and make sure you're going again,
get everyone back in place, and you move on.
Keep moving forward.
TROY: I think you can always get better.
You can always improve.
But when I look back at that resuscitation,
it was an incredible job.
Everyone should be very proud of themselves.
Today, Bondi welcomes back a familiar face.
Andrew Reid, or Reidy, has returned after a two-year break.
Just another reminder - try and stay out of this hole, please.
Yeah, I've been off for two years on parental leave.
Three beautiful children,
and the last two were pretty close together,
so wanted to spend time with the kids while they were young.
(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
Reidy has been a fixture at Bondi for nearly 20 years.
Yeah, a lot's changed.
Back in the day, I had blonde hair, which was made even blonder
by Coca-Cola and lemon,
that I used to put in it!
I'm probably one of the older dogs now.
I still try and keep fit, but.
I could probably run rings around a lot of the younger blokes.
It's good to be back on the beach, eh?
It's good to have you back, bro. Oh, thanks, mate.
It's a very lovely thing of you to say.
For Will, the novelty of having Reidy back on deck
could soon wear thin.
There's no-one like Andrew Reid.
(WHISTLES) Don't go in that hole!
Guys, you'll 100% appear on Bondi Rescue
if you swim in that hole.
Really good on a megaphone,
Reidy never shuts up.
Guys, there's two 'dangerous current' signs.
Not one, but two.
You can't have missed both of them, surely.
I try and make my megaphone announcements fun and interesting.
Guys, spin around. Have a look at those two yellow signs.
The swimmer and the cross.
But there is a serious reason behind it,
because I genuinely don't want them to drown.
Me saying, "No, no, no, no, no,"
that means no, no, no, no, no.
If I can get them out of the water and down to the flags,
I've been successful.
And like any good performer,
Reidy always makes sure to check the mic
before starting his routine.
Before Reidy makes an announcement,
he makes three blows into the megaphone.
So... (BLOWS THREE TIMES)
(BLOWS INTO MICROPHONE THREE TIMES)
(BLOWS THREE TIMES)
Hello.
I hope you're a good swimmer.
We're about to find out.
You never want to talk into the megaphone when it's not working.
So I always give it a quick... (BLOWS THREE TIMES)
..and then off we go!
Reidy's also been known to try a spot of rescue commentary,
unfortunately for Will.
Seen a rescue that needs to be done,
I keep hearing the same whining voice,
but I can just make out what he's saying.
And it said something along the lines of, uh...
Actually, Will's been a Bondi lifeguard for six years.
Basically put me to the sword in front of everyone.
And then he decided to end with...
(APPLAUSE) (CHUCKLES)
I liked him better when he was on daddy leave.
Reidy's got so many years of experience,
he's a fantastic lifeguard,
he is a good bloke and I've got a lot of time for Reidy.
I just wish he didn't talk as much.
Reidy is experienced enough to know when to get serious.
A man has been swept off a sandbank
right in front of this central lifeguard tower.
He was heading out in this rip,
which we'd done a few rescues in already.
(MAN SCREAMS)
He went from floating to climbing the ladder
and drowning within seconds.
(MAN SCREAMS)
He was screaming his head off, going under.
(MAN SCREAMS)
Yeah, you've just got to get out there as quick as you can.
With the patient unable to keep his head above water...
Oh, shit.
..there's not a second to lose.
A man is caught in a strong rip right in front of the central tower.
Reidy rushes to the rescue.
Oh, shit.
But suddenly...
..loses his board.
REIDY: Just got this double upshore-y.
Literally, it just exploded on me,
and I tried to hold the board
and it twisted my shoulder right around,
and I felt my ligament tear a little bit.
As the swimmer struggles to stay afloat,
Reidy loses vital seconds recovering the board.
Losing the board can definitely be the difference
between life and death.
Oh, wow.
Lucky for me, as it happens at Bondi,
there's so many surfers around -
a surfer got to him in time and all was good.
When I got to him and got him on the board,
he was definitely scared.
He was pretty close.
I reckon he probably had another 30 seconds left in him.
Gotta be careful.
Oh, he was screaming!
He just started to panic, obviously, very quickly.
And then this little sucker, I try to get under it,
and then it just...
Lost the board, which is a cardinal sin.
I owe the boys a case of beer.
You know it's bad.
Reidy doesn't have time to dwell on his mishap with the board...
Just swim straight back to shore. You're swimming against the rip.
..there's always another swimmer to save.
68-year-old Chris might be from California,
but he's not much of a beach boy.
He said... (US ACCENT) "Oh, man, I screwed up, I screwed up.
"I went in the wrong spot."
And I was like, "Oh, mate, it's alright. It's all good.
"You have, but that's what we're here for."
And this is why we love doing this job.
I think I'm OK. No worries.
I'm OK. You're good.
Look, I got everybody excited!
Even my wife.
I haven't seen her that excited for a long time.
If Reidy was hoping to ease his way back in
after a two-year break,
Bondi didn't get the memo.
It was a big day for me.
A good little initiation back to the beach.
Hey, boys, let's get everyone over to the sand bank, please.
You go from doing nothing,
you're just sitting around having a laugh with the boys
to, like, rescue, rescue, rescue!
And then it's...
Your muscles aren't really warmed-up.
Yeah. It's just... That's Bondi. (CHUCKLES)
(PSYCHEDELIC SIREN BLARES)
There's no point burying your head in the sand.
When it comes to weird and wonderful sights,
Bondi always delivers.
WILL: I was with Tommy in the tower and I looked north.
I just saw this bloke standing with two creatures.
What are these things?
Something is causing a stir on the promenade at Bondi.
I just saw this bloke standing with two creatures.
What are these things?
My name's Adam, and I'm just walking my ferrets.
Down here on the beach, we've seen dogs,
we've seen cats, we've seen rabbits,
horses,
alpacas...
Ferrets?!
I love ferrets. I think they're great pets.
They like to run along the beach, have a bit of a dig.
They like to chase the seagulls. They're little carnivores.
My history with ferrets is slim to none.
No, I've never seen anyone with a ferret before.
That's so cool, man. (CHUCKLES)
I didn't know you could put them on a leash,
I didn't know you could own them as a pet.
Everyone stops to ask you what they are.
Because he lives in a small apartment in Bondi,
he can't have a dog,
so he skipped out on the cat and decided to go for ferrets.
When they are sleepy, they just kind of lay on the ground
and refuse to move.
That's why I've got the bag!
Cart them home.
Nothing surprises me anymore down at this beach.
If someone showed up with their pet flamingo...
..I'd just say, "This is Bondi."