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Help! Phuket Rescue Team Tested: Photo Special
Friday, October 22, 2010
UPDATE: Photo Album Above
French tourist Jean-Pierre Charles Dulary remained in a coma, fighting for life, in the intensive care unit at Phuket's Vachira Hospital on Friday evening.
Original Report
THE MAN in the water was waving for help. He was clearly in danger of drowning, becoming another Phuket statistic.
The lifeguard ran to the edge of the surf and plunged in. He took broad strokes and sped out as fast as he could.
This was the scene when Phuketwan arrived today at Nai Thon beach, on Phuket's west coast between Patong and the airport. It is where a Russian tourist drowned earlier this week, and we thought today that we'd just happened to stumble upon another real-life drama unfolding.
What we saw instead brought a great sense of relief, and then delight. This was the Nai Thon lifeguard team practicing, racing into the sea one by one, to ready for the day when their new-found skills might be life-saving.
This was no planned demonstration - we'd rocked up at the beach purely by chance, to see how the tourists there were being treated. And we've seldom been so impressed.
While generalisations can't be made about the whole of Phuket on the basis of what we stumbled upon today, if all of Phuket's beaches are being guarded by a team as skilled and conscientious as these guys appeared to be, then visitors - and residents - are in extremely safe hands.
The lifeguards' pod was set up at the northern end of Nai Thon, and it may well change position depending on the way the undercurrents are running.
There were yellow and red flags deliniating the safe swimming zone, and red warning flags along the beach a little on either side of the safe zone.
As we looked on, two tourists entered the water outside the safe zone - and a lifeguard sprinted in, waving at them and pointing in the right direction, crossing his arms in the international sign for ''Don't do that.''
No whistle, just easily understood hand-signals . . . and the couple move straight for the safe zone.
Nai Thon is a wonderful beach. The surf tumbles in, and with the sun shining as it was today, there are few better places in the world to be.
A large group of Russians appreciated it. They were all around the safe zone - the rest of the beach was deserted.
Every death from drowning in the waters off Phuket is needless and unnecessary, but the figures show that there have been 100 to the end of September, compared to 122 to the same time last year.
Beach deaths are not separated in the statistics from deaths on fishing boats or in pools or canals, so it's not possible even to say with certainty that beach drownings are down.
But the signs are very encouraging.
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