“She looked like she was in trouble, and I was rescue-ready"

Isabella still struggles to understand how a perfectly normal day at the beach went so bad, so quickly.

One minute, she and her sister Antonia and friends were enjoying a refreshing swim in the surf, and the next, they were caught in a flash rip. They had been swimming between the flags but had drifted outside the safe-swim area.

As Antonia and her companions were helped back to shore by a good Samaritan on a boogie board, Isabella could only watch with mounting fear. She had been separated from the others and was being pulled out further by the waves. 

“I’m a reasonably strong swimmer and had never had any problems in the water, and this was a really scary situation,” Isabella recalls. 

As she watched her sister and friends being led to shore by the boogie board rider, she contemplated calling out to him for assistance; but she quickly realised he was just a public beachgoer. Not a trained volunteer surf lifesaver. 

“I was worried he might also get into trouble if he swam out to me,” she says.

Sadly, in the 22/23 season, 9 beachgoers drowned while attempting to rescue others.

With rising panic, Isabella says she was incredibly relieved when she saw someone pop up out of the surf nearby. The woman was wearing the familiar yellow and red surf rescue patrol cap. It was one of Bronte Surf Club’s finest: surf lifesaver Olivia.

Olivia had been patrolling on the beach when she saw her patrol looking with concern in Isabella’s direction. 

“She looked like she was in trouble, and I was rescue-ready with my fins and tube, so I was able to get to her relatively quickly.”

While Olivia plays down her heroic actions that day, she does admit that she and Isabella were ‘smashed down by a few waves’ before she finally got them back onto a sand bank between the flags. 

Once Olivia returned Isabella to the shore, she handed her over to her fellow patrolling surf lifesavers to check on her. Then she went straight back out to assist other distressed swimmers.

When she’s not saving lives on the beach, the 29-year-old volunteer surf lifesaver works in sustainable finance for an Australian bank. But volunteering is in Olivia’s blood, and she is passionate about her commitment to Surf Life Saving Australia.

That passion and the hard work Olivia puts in behind the scenes to improve her skills was rewarded when she was named Bronte Surf Life Saving Club’s 2023 Surf Lifesaver of the Year. 

Olivia is also a Co-Vice Captain for her Sunday afternoon patrols at the Bronte Surf Life Saving Club, a role that recognizes her leadership skills. These are well deserved accolades, according to Mary: the mother of the young woman Olivia rescued back in February.

“These surf lifesavers really are unsung heroes,” says Mary. 

That’s why she reached out to Bronte Surf Club via Facebook, to identify and thank the volunteer surf lifesaver who saved her daughter’s life. 

Mary‘s daughter Isabella was reunited with her heroic lifesaver just weeks after the dramatic beach rescue. Mary was thrilled to meet the woman who saved her daughter’s life. “I gave her the biggest hug! And I told her I was just in awe of what she and her fellow surf lifesavers do.”

The public face of surf lifesaving is the regular weekend beach patrol.

But so much more goes on behind the scenes to ensure these amazing volunteers maintain their skills and remain rescue-ready. For a volunteer surf lifesaver like Olivia, that includes ongoing training in the water over the colder winter months; board training sessions with her fellow volunteers and maintaining a high level of personal fitness

Olivia also continues to upgrade her skills through additional medallions and courses: from ongoing first aid training to the advanced resuscitation course she is about to commence.

 

You can show your gratitude for their service, and honour their amazing contribution to our way of life, by donating to the Surf Life Saving Foundation.