It’s not the beach: it’s us

Photo of red and yellow beach flags.

Images of heroic lifeguards plucking people from dangerous surf conditions and reuniting them with loved ones are part of the Australian culture.

But what if we could better understand the factors that lead to surf rescues on beaches by using geomorphological, environmental, and human data?

Our research looked at risk factors for surf rescue and found a very clear trend: every swimmer outside of the flagged patrol area is almost ten times more likely to need rescuing than the swimmers between the flags. Let that sink in. Doesn’t matter who you are. Doesn’t matter how crowded it is between the flags. Ten times more likely to need rescuing.

The flags are there for a reason.

Different types of beaches have different risk factors for rescue. Beaches protected from the swell by a headland have a strong relationship between wave size and rescues. The larger the waves the more likely you will need rescuing.

Surprisingly that doesn’t hold for open beaches. Rescues go up as wave size increases, but once the waves are larger than average, rescues decrease. The reasons for that need to be investigated further.

Beaches with inlets or tidal channels have a strong relationship between rescues and the outgoing tide. For other beaches, rescues are more likely when the tide is low.

Finally, we have to understand that how you and I behave has an enormous impact on whether we need rescuing. Some of the safest beaches in Queensland had the highest rescue rate per swimmer. It’s not just swimming between the flags. It’s us.

I have to admit this blog is partly written in frustration. Frustration that there is such little evidence informing drowning prevention, especially when compared to any other form of trauma that kill hundreds of thousands of people every year. Frustration that when there is good quality evidence, it’s often ignored. Ignored simply because it gets passed by, or worse, because of dogma. So, kudos to the Beach Safety Research Group for trying to change things.

You can read the full journal article in Natural Hazards.