Surf lifeguards spring into action when serious quad bike accident disrupts beach training

A routine life-saving surf training program took an unexpected turn last weekend when participants had to race to the site of a serious quad bike accident on the beach.

Surf Life Saving New Zealand (SLSNZ) Risk and Wellness Manager Ross Merrett was at Riversdale Beach in Wairarapa on Saturday with two other staff members and 41 volunteers.

The team was tending to the injury of one of their own when a member of the public approached the trainees asking for help.

Merrett and Rebecca Scott, a recently qualified volunteer surf lifeguard and medic, were the first to arrive at the crash site. They arrived and found a 1x1m trailer disconnected from the quad that was towing it.

“There were people on the ground in various twisted states, and others were wandering around in shock,” Merrett said.

“It appeared that they had traveled at high speed and had hit the edge of a stream that runs along the beach. Two of the victims had been thrown more than 20 meters.”

Merrett and Scott quickly realized that one of the teenagers on the floor had a spinal injury, while another had suffered a broken femur. A third had a severe knee laceration, a concussion and a suspected fractured wrist.

“We had to splint the fractured femur without pain relief – you can imagine what that was like for the victim.”

Westpac helicopters were called in from Palmerston North and Wellington, but rising tides meant that the closest landing point was 650m from the beach from where the accident occurred.

Volunteer surf rescuers prepared a landing site and stabilized the victims so they could be transported on stretchers to the waiting helicopters.

The teens were very lucky that the training program took place that day; otherwise, it could have taken much longer for help to arrive, Merrett said.

Riversdale Surf Life Saving Club would have been “extremely stretched out” to help.

“It takes about six people to make a log roll, which is the way people with back injuries are moved on a stretcher. Riversdale could have three people on duty at any one time.”

In all, 16 surf lifeguards were involved in the incident for an hour and a half.

SLSNZ Executive Director Paul Dalton said he was proud of the way staff and volunteers responded with efficiency and skill throughout the day.

“Our surf lifeguards do not have a ‘kill switch.’ This is a perfect example of our volunteers coming in and doing what needs to be done to keep kiwis safe on our beaches, in and out of the water,” he said. said.