By Bronwyn Sell
TAURANGA - Thirty-two Bay of Plenty and Coromandel volunteer lifeguards have won accolades after a hectic season for all involved in lifesaving.
Lifeguards carried out more than 1000 rescues on the region's beaches during the La Nina summer, six times more than for the previous season.
About half of the
rescues were made in the week between Christmas and New Year, when volunteer lifeguards were called in to boost professional patrols.
Barry Leabourn, coordinator for Power New Zealand Surf Lifesaving Bay of Plenty, said the professionals could not have coped without the volunteers, many of whom took time off work to help.
He said the public owed a debt of gratitude to the dedication and professionalism of volunteer lifeguards, in particular the 32 who at the weekend received certificates of thanks for outstanding service.
Among those recognised were Waihi lifeguards Hayden Munro and Evan Orr, both of whom slept overnight at the lifeguard service clubrooms between Christmas and New Year and were called out to several rescues.
In Mt Maunganui three of the so-called fossil patrol members - Graham Barnett, Chas Lake and Sid Salek - spent numerous hours rescuing people from the many rips that formed on the beach. Two other veteran lifesavers, Kent Jarman and Mary Mollard, performed about 16 separate rescues from an inflatable rescue boat.
In Pauanui and Whangamata lifeguards from other districts who were on holiday grabbed rescue tubes and pitched in. At Omanu volunteers worked seven days a week, and at the usually quiet Whiritoa Beach they were indispensable on one day in which there were 30 rescues.
Mr Leabourn said the service was inundated with nominations for awards for volunteer guards this year.
