# Take me back to the
# The hot nights
# Everything's gonna be alright
# In the summertime
# Baby, in the summertime
# That is where I'll be. #
It's Christmas Eve.
Bondi is usually heaving with holiday-makers.
But today, no-one wants to be here.
There's a couple of people around. I can't believe they're down here.
We just want to go home, see our families
but we're stuck down here in this horrible, horrible weather.
It was threatening to rain all day and now it's really coming down.
Wet!
MAN: You've got a river running through the middle of Bondi!
Poor old Santa's gonna be wet, isn't he?
Huh? And it's Christmas!
Torrential rain is flooding the beach
and the lifeguard tower.
It was a weird one. Everything just came down at once.
It was one of those different storms that come through,
that come down in volume.
It instantly wiped out the tower, the tunnels -
everything just filled up, right up.
This storm came right through before one of the busiest days of the year.
Our tower's got everything we need,
all our equipment, all our safety gear, all our rescue gear,
so we knew everyone had to kick into gear
and make sure everything was ready for the next day.
I saw Chappo - he was head-to-toe in sand, wet
and he was digging with a shovel,
trying to make a trench through the whole middle of the beach.
Looked like hard work so I thought I'd come up with a new idea.
I thought, why not throw the buggies in two-wheel drive
and see if we could make a couple of trenches with that.
So we ended up, all the crew on shovels
and then having the buggies just rip through the sand.
It's working, eh? Yeah.
CHAPPO: You know, we'll get this done
and the boys won't be so flooded in the morning.
MAN: Beautiful day down here, on Christmas Day.
We've had...some pretty average weather in the last 24 hours,
some of the heaviest rain I've ever seen in Bondi.
You wouldn't know it, after seeing the sunrise this morning,
how beautiful the conditions are.
It's a sunny day. I think we'll be getting a big turn-out.
NARRATOR: People come from across the world for a Bondi Christmas.
Like British couple Chrissie and Gary.
Christmas barbecues on the beach - it's not right. (LAUGHS)
I need to have snow! It's normally minus-10 and snow.
They have a soft spot for the boys in light blue.
Thanks so much.
We always said we wanted to come on Christmas Day
and give them a present - not many people say thankyou for what they do
and they spend so many hours here, even...
Even after hours.
..after they're supposed to work.
Just appreciation. Unreal. Have a good one.
Free food never lasts long in the tower
but the lifeguards won't have time to enjoy their Christmas feast.
Today they expect around 20,000 revellers.
ALL: Merry Christmas!
Happy Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas from Bondi!
(CHEERING)
(LIVELY MUSIC PLAYS)
MAN: The majority of people at the beach today
are tourists having a Christmas away from home,
so everybody's out here for a swim, which is great -
we love having people down here -
but yeah, the rips are pulling,
people are swimming in the wrong spot...
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
A lot of non-swimmers
and it's every chance it could be chaos this afternoon, absolutely.
Faddy has been a lifeguard at Bondi for six years.
I love everything about it - your office is at the beach,
I work with friends,
get to give back to the community and help people, I get to keep fit -
yeah, it's really... it's a blessing, this job.
He's no stranger to the chaos
but this is his first Christmas Day on duty.
The beach is gridlocked, everyone's down here having fun
but no-one's really paying attention to the rules as much as normal.
Tommy spots a swimmer struggling in front of the tower.
Jack and Eddie take a closer look.
I got the call from Eddie...
..and there was a guy just, sort of, face-down in the water
but still, sort of, flapping his arms.
It was really bizarre
and he was sort of signalling for help
but he just wouldn't pull his head out of the water.
Hey. Hey!
People that aren't familiar with the beach,
when they get themselves in trouble, do strange things.
I almost thought, at any moment he would...started sinking.
I haven't had many situations
where the patient looks like they're not gonna make it.
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go!
Grab him! Grab him!
Jack heads out on the board to back up.
(WHISTLES) Out! Out, out, out, out, out, out.
Oi! Oi, oi, oi!
I pulled up next to him on the jet ski
and got to just where I could reach him
and grabbed him by his hair
and pulled him up to the side of the ski.
To my surprise, he was conscious.
Kind of tried to reassure him a little bit.
Coming, I'm coming, I'm coming.
Just due to the nature of it and the way he was behaving,
made the decision for me to pass him on to Jack on the rescue board.
It's a bit easier
to manage a patient, when they're a little bit limp,
on a board rather than one person on a jet ski.
As I passed the patient on to Jack...
Take him straight in, Jack.
I looked up and seen a set wave coming straight at us.
Luckily I've had time to let go of the patient and hit the trigger
and gas over the wave on the jet ski
but Jack didn't have that luxury - he had no motor
and a patient that was essentially dead weight.
Oh, no! Oh!
Oh, Jack!
NARRATOR: Christmas Day.
but it's a battle to bring him back to shore.
I looked up and seen a set wave coming straight at us.
I've just given Jack an absolute hospital pass.
Oh, no! Oh!
Oh!
He did a good job to re-gather him,
because it was deadweight in the impact zone of the surf.
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
You can't plan for everything.
The aim of the game is to keep people safe -
in this instance, it was get a drowning man back to shore alive
and Jack did the job.
Let's get in.
Out, out, out, out.
It is nice to feel like you've made a difference.
And those sort of days, you really do.
I mean, if we weren't there, that guy probably would have died.
NARRATOR: It's a Bondi tradition
to show your Santa style on Christmas Day.
But there's only one real man in red.
Santa!
Hello! Merry Christmas!
Santa has been visiting Bondi since the 1940s.
Though never quite like this.
(KIDS CALL OUT)
Harries is off-duty...
and off-balance.
Oh! Whoa!
This has to be the greatest day in lifeguarding,
when someone turns into Santa
and they have the best day of their life.
(KIDS CALL OUT)
It's so beautiful to just see families and kids go wild
when they see Santa.
What have we got here?
Oh!
When the lollies came out, they just went absolutely wild.
There was no room for moving, for Santa.
Oh!
Oh! Ohhh!
The kids piled on top of me.
I was just looking up, going,
"There's way I'm getting out of this."
It felt like I was in a UFC gym.
(KIDS CLAMOUR)
Oh!
Oh-ho!
Bye!
Mid-afternoon and thousands of families have flocked to the beach
to test out their new Christmas toys.
(SQUEALS)
The lifeguards' first priority is to keep swimmers safe
but the sand is also swarming with kids.
11-year-old Alan has lost his mum.
Hey, um...do you know her phone number?
Yeah, I know it? You know her phone number?
Yeah. Good work.
That's set. Here you go, mate.
On days like this, to locate a missing kid's parents,
you're gonna be looking for a needle in a haystack -
there's so many people out there.
Eddie sends Alan back to where he last saw his mum.
10 minutes later, she arrives at the tower.
Alan? Hello.
Thank you.
After a terrifying 40 minutes,
mother and son reunite.
Yeah, I was freaked out and I couldn't find him
and I saw the Westpac helicopter
and the scary thought in my mind,
I'm like, "What am I gonna do?"
Thank you. You too.
This is Tommy's second year as a lifeguard
and the second away from his family.
Christmas Day, every year, I get a photo with my kids.
Down at North Bondi, they set a tree up.
He's got four kids and gives up his whole Christmas Day
to come down here and help out
and it just speaks volumes of the type of guy he is.
As a former champion paddler, Tommy knows his way around a board.
Last year, he saved dozens of swimmers on Christmas Day.
CHASE: Working with Tommy, I just had a great partner.
He's a legend. He's a legend in the community.
Everyone knows him
and he's got a start here as an older guy
and that goes to say something,
'cause not many people can get down here at his age
and do what he's doing.
This Christmas, Tommy is already notching up the rescues.
A group of swimmers are in trouble at Backpackers Rip.
Four people all need saving
and Tommy has no back-up.
Bringing in one swimmer on a board is tough enough.
Tommy hauls in all four.
He's got four people on his board.
To actually bring people in, four has to be the max.
The most I've seen. It's solid. It's impressive.
Alex and Amy from England
are lucky their Christmas didn't end in tragedy.
Must have got... Lost track of where we were.
When we were trying to swim in,
the wave would come over and then it would pull us back out
and we just felt helpless.
We felt stuck
and the sense of it all, running out of breath and energy.
Couldn't get back to the beach.
While the north end of Bondi is family friendly...
..the south is a danger zone
for even the strongest swimmers.
Tommy has spent most of his Christmas rescuing people from the south end.
Mid-afternoon.
He sees a parent's worst nightmare -
two children way out of their depth.
I could just see a clubbie going to someone.
From the beach, all I could see was floaties.
One of the floaties I was looking at, I could just see the hat,
so I couldn't even see the head.
I went straight out.
There was a clubbie there with the kids.
I don't know how old the kids were, maybe four, maybe six.
But it's just not where kids should be.
It's real deep water and it just runs out so quick.
Those little things - they aren't gonna save anyone.
All they're gonna do is mostly float them out through the rip.
The children are oblivious to the danger they were in.
Their parents are nowhere to be seen.
What are these kids doing there? Who's responsible?
I went around looking, with the kids, for the parents...
..and just couldn't find anyone.
the most dangerous rip at Bondi.
The kids seem unaware of the close call.
Tommy can't track down the parents.
TOMMY: I can't leave my post.
I knew where the parents were - they were up the hill
but they weren't anywhere near the water.
The parents - more than 200 metres from where their kids were swimming.
They just left the kids - let the kids go.
They nearly drowned.
I can't go up, mate, but, um...
I, um, get fired up because I've got four kids
and when they're near the water,
um...
it's really important to know every second that...where they are.
And these guys, they're not even anywhere near the beach!
They're not even on the beach. They're up near the trees.
We're not baby-sitters down here,
so if I had have got there any later - good chance they'd drown.
South End is putting Tommy to the test.
Coming!
Within minutes, he's back in.
Two girls have been swept off a sandbank.
A volunteer lifesaver is helping the women
but he's also battling the rough conditions.
Tommy arrives just in time.
When I approached the girls,
they were pretty gassed.
I got to the first girl...
..got her just holding on to the rope
but she slowed me down from getting to the other one.
The other one panicked.
Panic just doesn't help.
Your body goes into this sort of shock.
You get all these negative thoughts,
you get gassed really quick.
With the swimmers still panicking,
Jack swoops in on the ski to lend a hand.
The jet ski was there, so one of the girls went on the jet ski
and I put the other girl on the front of the board
and we caught a little wave in.
Here! Jump on.
She settled down.
Like, once you're there with them and they're breathing again,
you can see a change in their face
and even their heart-rate drops and their breathing drops
and...and they relax.
At the end of the day, it's Christmas Day,
you've got the adrenaline going.
I really enjoy doing rescues.
It's all happening, mate! It is, isn't it?
This is what we live for. It's good!
I'm a bit smarter, I think, this year,
um, with my time and energy.
He's on fire.
Tommy was just amongst it, doing double rescues, triple rescues.
FADDY: Tommy's a new lifeguard but a really experienced waterman,
so when he's patrolling a section of the beach, you just know it's safe.
Last year, Tommy saved Christmas Day and this year, he's done it again.
doesn't mean you miss out on the action.
Sometimes, the action comes to you.
From Hollywood hunks...
Bondi Central to all lifeguards.
It's David Hasselhoff.
..to uninvited guests.
Gonna be our new pet.
Call him Chips. Chips the leech.
When that bell goes...
(BELL CHIMES) MAN: I'm on it.
..they never know who or what might be waiting.
Hey! How are you?
There was a mother and her son and the son was holding a bucket.
Young Raphael has made a rare find...
..something Harrison has never seen at Bondi.
I don't know - I thought that, you know,
maybe he might have caught a little fish or something in the rock pool
and he just wanted to show me and it was pretty cute.
All I could see was a couple of shells, a bit of seaweed
and all of a sudden,
I saw the most venomous thing you could ever find down here at Bondi.
A beautiful - and deadly - blue-ringed octopus,
fresh from the kids' pool at North Bondi.
I caught it!
WOMAN: He did and he...
Blue-ringed octopus venom is 1,000 times more toxic than cyanide.
One bite contains enough venom to kill 26 people.
Raphael seemed pretty cool, calm and collected
with such a deadly creature.
However, his mum, on the other hand,
knew this had to be handed in to the lifeguards.
I don't know.
Let's go put it back in the ocean, eh, Will?
Harrison takes charge
with Operation Re-house Henry...
Sit down here, mate.
..this time, well away from the kids' pool.
If anyone finds a blue-ringed octopus at Bondi,
it's where they live and it's their home.
However, if it is in the kids' pool,
probably best to let the lifeguards know
and, uh, we'll put it back in the ocean.
Being a lifeguard here for 11 years, I think I've seen it all.
Nah. The blue-ringed octopus - that takes the cake.