you at 6:30 tomorrow. We'll see you
tomorrow.
Captions
tomorrow. Captions by
# The hot nights
# Everything's gonna be alright In the summertime
# Baby, in the summertime
# That is where I'll be. #
For days, a huge swell has been pounding the coast.
Surfers are in big-wave heaven.
Even on the shore, the surging surf is a powerful force.
Bondi lifeguards are on high alert.
Once again, attention all swimmers.
Very dangerous conditions.
Please help us out by staying nice and close to shore,
where you can stand at all times.
We've had one jet ski fail and the second one's just failed.
With two jet skis out of action,
Mitch decides to get everyone out of the water.
..to booth?
Go. Clubbies going home in 10 minutes.
Still pretty busy down here and we don't have a ski.
How do we feel about maybe pulling these flags early tonight?
Yeah, I reckon while we got some help with the clubbies,
let's just try and clear them all out.
It's just getting to that part of the day
where there's still so many people in the water.
We're going to get as many people out as we can now,
while we've still got like an hour.
All these people in front, out, out of the water.
These gentlemen wearing the shirts, out.
On a hot afternoon,
convincing people to stop swimming isn't easy.
Attention, beach users.
The lifeguard service is finishing up.
The red and yellow flags have come down.
Very, very dangerous here.
No. Hello? No, no, no.
Out! No more.
We generally have quite long days on the beach,
and you're going from the first thing in the morning...
..advising people, making announcements.
Hello? It's me again.
We don't want people in the water anymore.
When we don't really get a response from people,
it gets quite frustrating.
Again, too dangerous for swimming now.
No sport or swimming at Bondi, please.
Hello, hello, are these your friends? Time to get out.
Time to go home.
Please come back tomorrow if you wish to swim.
You can see how big the surf is.
You can feel the current, it's very dangerous.
Get out of the water.
We'd been making announcements for a while
and finally the crowd was starting to thin in the flags.
We were getting ready to go, and then all of a sudden
we had this lady come up.
Yeah.
Yeah, OK.
OK.
Brenda is on holidays from Melbourne,
her nephew Aaron, from Perth.
His belongings lie untouched.
His beach towel hasn't been used.
That was 40 minutes ago.
Because he was actually a grown man swimming between the flags,
initially my thoughts were he's probably gotten out
and gone to get a, you know, a cool drink
just to watch the sunset for the afternoon.
Alright, I'll let the boss know.
We'll have a look on the binoculars, yeah?
North to central.
(OVER RADIO) I've got a lady with concerns about her nephew.
34 years old.
Name's Aaron Thomas.
Hasn't returned to their things on the beach.
We were swimming with my nephew Aaron,
and then we lost sight of him.
Cannot see him, like, he was in the water...
Belongings are there, the accommodation key's there.
And, like, we had dinner reservations at 6:30.
Aaron loves his food.
Like, this is really out of character for him.
It has been almost an hour.
I am getting really quite worried.
Lifeguards would be very concerned if a child was missing.
Brenda's nephew is in his 30s.
We don't hit the panic button real quick.
I mean, situations like this happen a fair bit and people panic.
Potentially he could have gone across to the shops
or walked up the beach.
7pm...
..Aaron has been missing for almost 90 minutes.
(OVER RADIO) Mitch, this bloke still hasn't turned up.
Where would he go, though, if he had a dinner reservation at 6:30?
It's probably not good.
As the time starts to stretch on,
you definitely start to get a bit more concerned.
All of his belongings were still on the beach,
room key, towel, you know, towel still dry.
You know, we start to think
he actually still might be in the water.
There'd be only impact of a set, you know,
if he went over the falls or something,
he's gone down and hit the bottom or just knocked out.
So, the issue if he did get knocked out,
potentially he would have been on the bottom
and as the water was rushing back out,
it could have taken him out the back of the surf,
not washed him back to shore.
MITCH: Out of the water!
..34-year-old Perth man Aaron has disappeared.
This bloke still hasn't turned up.
He was last seen swimming between the flags.
I am getting really quite worried.
His towel and clothes are untouched.
He's been missing for more than 90 minutes.
You wanna jump in and we'll just go for a drive?
What's your name? Brenda.
Brenda. Alright.
What's your name? Mitch.
I wasn't really too sure what to do next, in all honesty.
You know, like, just to kind of allay her concerns a little bit,
I said, "Let's just go for a drive."
He might have gone for a bit of a mindful minute,
a bit of a walk along the beach.
We generally like to get as much information about that person...
..and then give it to the other guys that are working on the beach
so that they can keep an eye out as well.
Tea.
The beach starts to thin.
People start to leave and head home and he's still missing.
When we see the belongings, they're still there,
you know, room key, you know, towel's still dry,
that's when we have to start thinking about
what that next step might be.
We were still cruising south.
Brenda was next to me and she gets a call.
Oh, who is it? Oh, that's Justin.
Justin is another nephew.
He's also been scouring the beach and surrounding streets,
searching for his cousin.
It sounds like her nephew has been found.
Yeah, we found the missing person.
MAN: (OVER WALKIE) Cheers.
Bloody Aaron! I know.
Yeah, bloody Aaron.
That's... That's...
Brenda used a few choice words to describe her nephew
and the situation she found herself in.
All good. Yeah, good result.
So, Aaron, like, I don't know. Honestly, I don't know.
But for a grown-ass man, you know, this is pretty bullshit.
He can't even find his way back to the towel.
So, he's found someone to phone his mother in Perth
to actually, like, WhatsApp us
to say he's going back to the accommodation.
And I was like, "No way."
Like, this is absolutely ridiculous.
So he is definitely buying dinner tonight.
On a scale of 1-10, how angry are you, Brenda?
10, yeah, yeah, this is dinner and dessert.
Gelato, definitely, so, yes.
And, yes, I'll get him to bring some treats down
to the beach tomorrow as an apology.
Yes, anyway, all good.
Aaron went missing a second time,
and we still haven't seen the choccy or anything else to go with it.
On another summer sizzler, big surf has brought beachgoers out in force.
When a big swell combines with a sucking low tide
to produce powerful shore dumps,
not even swimming between the flags is a guarantee of safety today.
Hi. G'day.
Hi, my partner was just swimming, he's over near the other flag,
and he's like, come down on his neck pretty hard.
The accident happened between the flags
right in front of the north tower...
..an area usually deemed safer for swimming.
Let's go and check him up.
And what happened? He got dumped on the wave?
Like, he hit the bottom or something?
Yeah, he said he hit pretty hard.
OK. And he, like, with the forehead?
He just that he, like, had pins and needles.
Oh, does he? OK.
Let's check him out.
When someone comes up to you like that
and they say they hurt quite a lot,
that is a good chance something really bad.
G'day, mate. I'm Mario, what's your name?
Dammo, Damien.
Damien, yeah. What's happening, tell me.
I caught a big wave out there, body surfing...
Yeah. ..and it dumped me.
Smashed my head on the bottom. Yeah.
I just crunched backwards. I heard my neck crunch.
Crunch, yeah. I heard it in my ears.
OK.
Now, got this arm, feels all funny, pins and needles.
Pins and needles, OK. Yeah.
When he started telling me that he had pins and needles
in his in his arms, that's an alarm to think,
"OK, so we have to look after really well this person."
Copy, mate. I'll call an ambo now.
HARRISON: Knowing the conditions that day, it was very shallow.
It was low tide, and it was a large swell.
It was just dumping right on to that sandbank.
Ambulance, please.
I just straightaway got the sick feeling.
Try not to move. Stand still as much as you can.
a 44-year-old body surfer has speared headfirst into a sandbank.
I heard my neck crunch.
This arm feels all funny. Pins and needles?
Yeah. OK, OK, yeah.
He had pins and needles in his left arm
and definitely it was a serious situation.
A feeling of pins and needles can be a sign of spinal damage.
Hello, guys.
If that damage gets worse, Dammo could be left paralysed.
HARRISON: He went headfirst into the sandbank.
He heard a crack in his neck straightaway.
That's an alarm bell in itself.
So, what was your name again, mate?
Dammo. Dammo, nice to meet you, mate.
Where are you from? Uh, Tassie, mate.
Oh, beautiful part of the world. Yeah.
We need to take this very seriously.
Alright, mate, what we're going to do,
I'm just going get you to lean back.
The priority for us
was for the patient not to move the head.
And that's when I come in straightaway from behind
and immobilise that head so he cannot move.
Do you want to come and give a bit of support underneath?
Yeah.
This moment when we're lowering him down,
this is the most delicate situation.
One slight move could make the difference
whether he walks again or not.
How's that pain? Um, it's OK.
It's getting...yeah.
Out of 10, being the worst pain ever,
what level is that?
I'd put it at a seven. A seven, OK.
What's the pain? Out-of-ten pain, he gave us a seven.
Dammo's from Tassie, he's, you know, he's a tough bugger.
If he's telling us it's a seven-out-of-ten pain,
this thing's off the Richter scale.
We're gonna put some sunnies on you, is that gonna be alright?
'Cause that sun's going to be a nightmare on you.
There's a particular way we get them on the spinal board.
Don't move, we'll do that for you.
It's called a log roll.
On the count of three, we're gonna roll, OK?
Yeah. One, two, three.
I'm always on the head when we're moving him,
so we don't want to make any movements
to adjust that spinal alignment.
It's not the most comfortable.
We also put the head blocks on there,
just to eliminate any movement whatsoever.
From what he's told me, and from my previous knowledge,
you know, I'm fearing for the worst for him.
I know that something is seriously wrong,
and I know he's done damage.
How's those pins and needles, still the same?
Yeah, it's just all down this arm.
Yeah. This this thumb.
Yeah. And my hand is cold.
Obviously his wife there as well, it'd be very daunting for her
because you don't want to see anyone in that position,
let alone your loved ones,
so, the best thing we can do is just reassure.
This is not the way to go about it, eh?
It's a freak accident.
That's where it makes me feel sick inside, unfortunately.
Well, I was catching a few waves,
body surfing in and then going back out,
and, yeah, I seen a couple of decent ones come through,
and then I caught the crest of it,
and it just dumped me into the bottom, hard.
Um, it was my neck that just went, yeah, "Crunch."
As soon as I...
As soon as that happened, pretty much, I got pins and needles
in my thumb and all down my left arm.
And before I'd even come to the surface,
I knew something was wrong.
Just come down to see the beach because I've never been here before
never been to Sydney,
so I thought I couldn't go to Sydney without seeing Bondi.
So, yeah, here I am.
For something really serious like this, I mean, you know,
we're lucky we've got a lot of knowledge down here,
but seeing the paramedics turn up for this is a big relief
because he's in a lot of pain.
Just hold it in your mouth, so you can have your hands free.
That's when the paramedics administer the green whistle.
That's just going to mask the pain.
One, two, three. Go.
Whoa!
Spinals are the ones that really affect me.
Knowing how serious Dammo's situation was,
I don't know the extent of the damage he's done,
but I know there's definitely something.
Could be could never walk again.
Four weeks later, we had a FaceTime with Dammo.
I was bracing myself for the worst.
Oh, wow!
Dammo, how are you going?
What was the result in the end?
Yeah.
Yeah. Ugh!
Mate!
I'm so glad we took those precautions.
It's the best outcome out of, you know, the worst situation,
which is a, which is a blessing.
Thanks, Dammo, mate. Good to chat. See ya, mate.
Take care. Cheers, mate.
Thanks, mate. Bye.
NARRATOR: One of the trickiest parts of being a lifeguard
is knowing when to call it a day.
Beachgoers don't always keep lifeguard hours.
We finish at 7:00 on the dot.
It's this fine line,
like, when do we shut and lock up the gear shed down below?
Nothing happens in that last kind of hour and a half,
then in the last three minutes before we leave,
it's like everyone wants to go out and drown.
The lifeguards have a little in-joke, after you've packed up,
don't look back at the ocean.
Just face west and walk away.
On this afternoon, though, Harrison looks east.
I just happened to look down at Backpackers'
and I just see these heads struggling.
Hey, Troy, are you unhooked down there, mate?
The beach is packed up, everything's away
and there was only one buggy left on the beach.
And it was Maxi, about 500m up at North Bondi.
We were packing up and we forgot to close the North Bondi Tower.
Harrison got on the radio and said,
"Oh, there's a couple of heads in Backpackers'.
"They're starting to drift out."
Yeah, bruv, I'm on my way down.
Thanks, mate, yeah, Backpackers'.
As soon as I started making my way back,
he called, "Yeah, they're starting to go."
So, I had to pin it.
(HORN HONKS)
Honestly, it was like a scene out of Top Gun...
..when they see the fighter jets fly past,
Maxi just comes hooking past.
Maxi has to cover nearly a kilometre.
I did have tunnel vision of getting to Backpackers'
as quickly as possible.
With every passing second,
a struggling swimmer is closer to drowning.
How quick things can go bad?
It takes less than 30 seconds for someone to drown.
at Bondi's notorious Backpackers' Rip.
Maxi just comes hooking past.
Help is not far behind.
Troy has unlocked the gear shed and grabbed a rescue board.
Is running down.
Copy.
Faddy fires up the other buggy.
(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
..probably the worse.
The furthest one out in the back looked like
she was struggling the most, so I went for her straightaway.
Backpackers' definitely caught a few out today.
So as I got to her, she was panicking a little bit.
But once I picked her up,
I knew that something wasn't entirely right.
(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
It was a bit of a happy, good-vibe-style rescue.
She's alive, she survived.
Sorry, I'm on mushrooms.
Mushrooms?
It turns out they were on magic mushrooms...
(DISTORTED VOICES)
..which was interesting.
Not being a great swimmer, taking psychedelic mushrooms
and going for a swim probably ranks
as one of the stupidest things you could do.
Yes, just be safe. Thank you.
Did she tell you? Huh?
Did she tell you out there? No.
She was on magic mushrooms. Was she?
Yeah! She'd have had a ride of her life there.
What a trip. What a trip.
I've seen it all in Bondi, but never magic mushrooms.
So now it kind of explains why
she was so happy and so flowy on the ride in.
Hey!
Mate! I was in the zone.
I was like, "I'm just going to get there."
Drugs and alcohol do not mix around any sort of waterway
because it can turn tragic very quickly.
I live for those rescues, those ones.
That was proper hard, North Tower...
..Backpackers'.
I'd be really interested to see
what they would have been seeing on this 'trip',
seeing Maxi paddle out to get 'em, was he like some Greek god
that's come out from the ocean like Aquaman,
or was he some gremlin? We'll never know.