A combined children’s water safety and community lifesaving training activity was held in Thailand earlier this month with help from Byron Bay Surf Club, the Phuket Lifeguard Club, and local surf life savers.
Byron Bay donated surf rescue uniforms for 50 community volunteer life savers who underwent three days training. Byron Surf Club also donated rescue boards.
The shipment was part of a truckload of rescue equipment supplied by far north coast and Sydney SLS clubs.
Naval support
‘The high cost of getting large quantities of rescue and lifesaving training equipment to where they were needed was solved when the Australian Navy offered to ship the equipment and deliver it to the Phuket Lifeguard Club,’ patron of the Phuket Lifeguard Club and Cudgen Surf Club chief training officer, Susan Eke, said.
The shipment also contains 1,500 donated child-size buoyancy vests that the Lifeguard Club will distribute to villages in the south of Thailand where they have drowning-prevention projects underway.
This year’s annual training tour to Phuket was staffed by volunteer life savers from Fingal, Cudgen, Salt, Cabarita, and Ballina clubs, who conducted three days of community lifesaving rescue and CPR training for 50 local people and Thai Tourist Police.
