by Joanne Lane 

23 January 2010, Brisbane, Australia.  Watching the images of suffering in Haiti this week, it struck me, not for the first time, how lucky I am to live in Australia where we don’t have disasters on this magnitude. In Haiti thousands could be dead, whereas our worst disasters and incidents claimed minor numbers in comparison – 173 in the 2009 Victorian Bush Fires, 88 in the 2002 Bali Bombs and 35 in the Port Arthur massacre of 1996.

 This doesn’t mean these losses are any less significant – in fact the wonderful thing about Australia is that we value life and mourn the passing of each soul. However I came across a statistic this week about Australian deaths that really alarmed me.

In 2009 more Australians drowned than have ever been lost through any single natural disaster, bomb or terrorist attack – leaving aside major wars. In the year ending June 2009, 302 people died in our backyard pools, rivers, dams and surf beaches.
The horrific Royal Surf Life Saving Report stated some of these people were on holiday, some were young kids who fell into pools or older people who had overestimated their abilities.

It’s hard to believe statistics like this in a country where people learn to swim about the time they learn to walk, as was my case. Also my state Queensland is one of the worst, with the highest drowning rate of children aged 0-5. Sixty per cent of these deaths were in backyard pools.

Queensland is known as the Sunshine State thanks to our miles of beaches and wonderful climate that encourages us to swim and then sadly also plays a factor in claiming our lives. Swimming should be associated with fun, holidays and summer not heartache and loss.

I was lying on one of our great beaches just last week on North Stradbroke Island in Moreton Bay, about an hours ferry ride from Brisbane. It was a beautiful day and there were surfers out in the water, kids playing on boogie boards, families relaxing under umbrellas and couples walking dogs.

Watching attentively from shore was a team of Surf Life Savers, an obvious presence perhaps in their bright yellow shirts but a facet of our beaches that has become so commonplace it’s almost overlooked.

 And yet any one of these Life Savers might have pulled the body of New Zealand man Richard Doyle from the water last week – he went missing from a Surfers Paradise beach and ended up out here – or they might have done something to prevent the 302 statistic from being worse.
Over the weekend they patrolled the beaches religiously, sending out helicopters and inflatable boats to check the headlands and even pulling swimmers and surfers out of the water when sharks were spotted. My hat goes off to them as all are volunteers and the work is nowhere near as glamorous as Bondi Rescue makes out – a TV show based on Sydney’s Bondi Beach.

 Despite Royal Surf Life Saving’s report, and more money being spent by companies to educate the public on water safety, the statistics could actually get worse in 2010.

 A record 41 people drowned over the Christmas holiday period, a 71 per cent increase from the 24 that drowned during this period 12 months ago.

 Horribly the latest were Sydney couple Carole and Joseph Sherry who drowned at South Ballina over the weekend, leaving behind three young children. Lismore Police are investigating the case, but it seems the father went into the water to assist the mother and both were caught in a rip.

I have never been privy to any kind of water safety situation although one of my first interviews for my university newspaper was with a girl who became a paraplegic after diving off someone’s shoulders into surf. Her head struck a shallow sand bank under the water and she injured her spinal chord.

I have family friends who lost a little boy who drowned in a dam on their property. He’d gone for a walk and never came back. Another friend’s wife was swept out of their car when they attempted to cross a flooded causeway.

As Rob Bradley, Royal Life Saving Society – Australia CEO said, “each death represents an Australian whose loss is felt by their family and community”.

The Society believes there are two key groups to target for water safety: children aged 0 to 17 years old and Australians aged over 55 years. This is because children aren’t given enough information on being water safe particularly in rivers, teenagers are often less supervised and older people misjudge their ability in the water.

They are encouraging people to be check their pool fences, educate their kids and do CPR resuscitation courses. I’ve done a refresher CPR course every year since about 2002. I’ve never used it and God willing I won’t have to.

With the Australia Day long weekend approaching and the last few days of holidays before school goes back, I bet Surf Life Savers are preparing for more heartache. Let’s do them a favour and swim between their flags on patrolled beaches, obey their instructions, be water wise and know our own abilities. And perhaps once in a while we could thank them for what they do.

Joanne Lane is a freelance photojournalist based in Brisbane, Australia.