Lifeguards around Aotearoa worked 10,249 hours between Monday 8 and Sunday 14 December, as warm weather and rising beach attendance led to a busy week of rescues, medical responses, and preventative activity.

Across the week, lifeguards performed 27 rescues, assisted 23 people, carried out 15 searches, and completed 2,627 preventative actions, reaching more than 27,300 people with safety advice. Peak headcounts exceeded 12,500 people nationally, with the busiest days occurring over the weekend.

Incidents along Auckland’s west coast on the evening of Monday 8 December were particularly challenging, with lifeguards and SAR squads from Muriwai, Bethells Beach, Piha and Kariaotahi all activated to multiple critical incidents within a 90-minute period. The responses occurred after patrols had closed, in fading light and challenging conditions. More information here.

In Wellington on Sunday afternoon lifeguards responded to an incident in which a man was pulled from the water into a member of the public’s boat and brought to shore at Titahi Bay unresponsive. Lifeguards assisted with CPR and handed over to ambulance staff, who declared he had died.

Surf Life Saving New Zealand would like to offer sympathies to all the whanau in our communities who are impacted by these incidents.

We would also like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all our lifeguards, duty officers, Surfcom operators and others in our lifesaving community for the hard work and skill being put into keeping people safe this summer.

Incidents this week also included:

Northern region 
Lifeguards from Raglan SLSC responded on Sunday evening to an incident 5km from the club near the campground, where a member of the public had pulled a child from the water and provided CPR. Lifeguards took over medical care until the patient was transported to hospital by Westpac Rescue Helicopter.

Eastern region 
Lifeguards were kept busy across the week with multiple rescues and assists reported mid-week and very strong beach numbers over the weekend, reflected in high preventative action volumes.

Central region 
Lifeguards responded to a kayak rescue off Waikanae on Thursday, working alongside Coastguard to safely return two people to shore. Further rescues and co-responses occurred later in the week’ including a SAR response at Paekākāriki for a person whose kayak had overturned 200m off Raumati Beach South who was safely returned to shore.

Aggregated patrol statistics:

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