Beach rescue crew reluctant heroes
Published: May 31, 2005
Rescue volunteers yesterday shrugged off hero status after helping two women trapped by a king tide against Anglesea cliffs.
Anglesea Surf Life Saving Club members Paul Lunny, Colin Brodie and Ingilby Dickson were at a meeting at club headquarters on Sunday when news broke that two walkers were stranded on nearby Grinders Beach.
They took new bathers off the club shop’s shelf, grabbed wet weather jackets and rushed to the stranded walkers’ aid.
Mr Lunny and Mr Brodie set out in a rescue boat and Mr Dickson raced along the shrinking shoreline.
“Heroes? Not at all,” Mr Lunny said yesterday.
“ . .We’ve got about 200 active members in our club and I suspect there’s no-one there who wouldn’t have got into the boat and done the same thing.
“We just happened to be there. I’m not trying to be flippant but it’s just part of the process.”
Mr Lunny and Mr Brodie, in the boat, defeated the heavy swell and picked up one woman who was waiting near Mr Dickson as the waves crashed into the cliff base. The other had clambered part-way up the cliff.
Rough conditions, which saw the boat crew tossed into the two metre swell during an attempted return to the second woman, hindered further efforts by boat and a police air-wing crew then winched her and Mr Dickson to the hovering helicopter.
Club president Peter Williams yesterday spoke of his pride in the trio’s actions. He reckoned they’d be reluctant to wear the tag “hero”.
He was right.
“They did a fantastic job. It (the rescue effort ) is what surf clubs are here for,” Mr Williams said.
Mr Lunny could manage a chuckle about the life-threatening rescue yesterday.
“I managed to score a new pair of bathers which I’ll have to pay the club for later,” the Bellbrae man said.
He talked of the “small window of opportunity” as he and his fellow club life member from Torquay nosed the craft into the shore on their first rescue attempt.
“There was a break in the surf and we went for it. We were all right,” he said.
Ingilby Dickson, of Brighton, had to swim through chest-deep water several times to reach the stranded women.
“The water was up to their knees but they were actually quite calm, unaware of the danger of their situation,” the scraped and bruised man said.
“I explained to them if they were on the beach in 30 minutes they’d be swimming.”
Mr Williams said Mr Dickson’s children thought it “pretty cool” their father had been winched into a helicopter.
“His only comment was they (the helicopter crew) told him not to put his arms up (during winching) and he said he had no intention of doing that,” Mr Williams said.
Volunteers from Torquay Marine Rescue, SES and CFA units and the surf life saving club took part in the rescue.
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