Puttur swimmers trained on advanced life-saving skills and beach rescue

Two certified and experienced life saving trainers Niroop G R and Srikrishna Vasanth from the Puttur Aquatic Club had been to Coogee, Sydney to understand and get themselves trained in various aspects in surf lifesaving training.

Drowning is one of the major causes for unintentional death and injuries in India. The country accounts for approximately 30,000 such cases “ with coastal drowning playing a major role“ as per a survey conducted till 2014. Educating people about aquatic safety measures is the only way to reduce such drowning incidents. AUSTSWIM Teacher of Swimming and Water Safety (TSW) provides excellent training in water safety and rescue techniques. Rashtriya Life Saving Society (India)- RLSS and Surf Life Saving Australia together started Surf Life Saving through AIC funding in 2014 and has trained around 33 nippers (junior SLS) in India. This favoured advancing knowledge by educating people about beach safety and the importance of starting beach safety centres in India to prevent drowning.

Dough Hawkins (trainer, assessor and facilitator, and director of Surf Life Saving SLS Sydney Nippers) inspired a bunch of youngsters to make Mangalore Surf Club India's first surf life-saving club on the lines of Australia's Surf Life Saving model. Partha Varanashi and Niroop G R with their trainers from Mangalore Surf Club trained over 500 surf lifesavers and successfully prevented 14 possible drowning cases.

Niroop G R and Sri Krishna Vasanth, lifesavers from India, were a part of life-saving and beach safety course at the Coogee Surf Life Saving Club, Australia, recently. Their motive to attend the course was to advance their skills and knowledge on aquatic safety and to initiate first beach safety centre in Mangaluru and then cover all the coastal states of India to educate people regarding water safety and rescue techniques.

The Lightning Bronze Medallion Course that they underwent provided them with in-depth knowledge of hazard identification, risk control, resuscitation techniques, performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), patient management techniques, patient retrieval with and without equipment and performing radio communications.

The Silver Medallion Beach Management course included advanced search and rescue techniques covering both day and night, executing complex patient rescue and demonstrating recovery. The beach management also included complete beach surveillance, managing rescue recovery requirement and preparing for the rescue, excelling the effectiveness of team, responding to the casualties, building up leadership qualities, undertaking work activities, setting performance requirements and maintaining team performance, communicating with management and management of aquatic spinal injuries.

Their training included Nipper's Age Manager course that was about educating youngsters aged 5 to 14 years regarding beach safety and training them to become life-savers. Apart from this, they underwent advanced swimming training by Ceri Weeks who is the AUSTSWIM Presenter for India in Tasmania.