Incident Protocol

Major Incident Reporting Protocol

In the event of an incident occurring at a venue officially patrolled by a Lifesaving South Africa voluntary duty member or duty squad or in a remote vicinity but attended to by members of the club/ duty squad while on duty the following reporting / investigative procedure must be adhered to.

Examples of reportable incidents are as follows but are not limited to

• Confirmed death by drowning or unknown causes or a near drowning of a member of the bathing public within the lifeguard patrolled area.

• Suspected drowning / disappearance of a member of the bathing public within patrolled area.

• Retrieval of bodies from the water.

• Injury to a member of the bathing public within patrolled area caused by the actions of a voluntary duty lifeguard in which case claims of medical and/or legal liability may be tested.

• Injury to a voluntary duty lifeguard caused during or subsequent to the execution of his or her lifesaving duty either by accident, force of nature or violent act in which case claims of medical and/or legal liability may be tested.

• Any resuscitation carried out by the club or its members, wherever it may occur, resulting from a call out made to the club

Resuscitation

In Lifesaving South Africa we begin to teach the aspects of the safe use of the sea to our Nipper members from 8 years of age. On reaching the age of 14, these young people move into the Junior ranks of the Association where amongst the topics studied for their Junior Lifeguard Award, they take the first steps of learning about Lifesaving and Resuscitation. They learn how to recognise symptoms of bather distress, how to safely secure the patient to rapidly remove them from the water to dry land, and how to check for vital signs and where necessary perform basic CPR. This basic knowledge is added to when the Junior Lifeguard goes on to take the full Lifeguard award from the age of 16. Other awards are available both within and outside the movement to further add to this basic knowledge.

Helicopter Rescue

In March 2005 the Nokia helicopter sponsorship contract ended. Nokia Finland had taken over the marketing and distribution of their phones and had different ideas to the local distributor with regards to marketing. Nokia Finland chose to focus on music and fashion.

We approached a number of corporate to take over the sponsorship and had much interest but only Netcare911 gave serious commitment, although their budget alone was not sufficient. Together, the CEO of the NSRI, Ian Weinberg, and Dr Ryan Noach, CEO of Netcare911, managed to convince Vodacom to make up the deficit and thus the Vodacom Netcare911 Surf Rescue service, a three year sponsorship, was born. However the contract is between Vodacom, Netcare911 and the NSRI.

The VNSR service took to the skies in Dec 2005. The helicopter is dispatched through the Netcare 911 flight desk, activated by the public through the 082911 telephone number. The Netcare911 control room provides state of the art technology with satellite tracking of all helicopters and ambulances as well as the ability to locate the GPS coordinates of callers to speed up rescue crew’s response. In addition, Netcare911 has negotiated much faster and more powerful B2 Squirrel helicopters for Durban and Cape Town over the December period from Helimax. This has raised the Surf Rescue service to a higher level of efficiency.

In Cape Town, George, PE, and Margate, the crew consists of a LSA rescue swimmer, an NSRI crewman, and a Netcare911 medic. In Durban LSA assists the NSRI in staffing the crewman position as the NSRI have fewer crew in KZN. Each region is managed by a regional co-ordinating committee made up of a representative from each organization. These RCC’s then report to a NCC with the same representation. This transition was easiest in Cape Town as the crew there have an established working relationship with experienced NSRI helicopter crew. In all other regions the transition has been difficult but successful. LSA has assisted the NSRI in KZN to train their crew in helicopter operations with the NSRI providing monthly training for LSA and Netcare staff in swift water and sea rescue techniques. A consequence of the transition is that the LSA heli crew stalwarts in Durban have retired. However there is still plenty interest from new crew members.

One of the problem areas at present is that the NSRI and LSA have different helicopter operations manuals with different crew requirements. An NCC sub committee has been tasked to sit in August 2006 to produce a combined manual with one set of standards. Thereafter the subcommittee will roll out the new manual in November 2006 in each region ensuring that crew are trained to the same standards in all regions prior to the summer season.

Contacts:
For any queries in your area, please contact your local representative.
They are as follows:
 Durban  - James Ross   - 082 465 8280
Margate  - Steve Shomela   - 076 619 2324
PE          - Mark Ackerman   - 082 809 0772
George   - Richard Botha     - 083 585 3339
Cape Town    - Johan Van Zyl - 083 556 2663