NSRI volunteers in the spotlight

WHILE the NSRI, made up of volunteers, is always on alert should any sea rescue be required, the general public may not be aware of exactly what the organisation does, how it operates and what the public can do to help it stay afloat.

In what will become a weekly series on the ‘Who’s Who’ of the Richards Bay NSRI station, NSRI volunteer and spokesperson for the station, Brynn Gericke, introduces us to how and why the organisation came into being.

It all started in 1966 at Stilbaai on the southern Cape coast near Mossel Bay.

Four fishing boats had been out at sea when a terrible storm hit, sinking three boats and causing 17 fishermen to drown.

The boat that made it back to shore was skippered by Gerhard Dreyer who, along with his crew, threw everything, including their catch off their vessel to make the boat as light as possible.

He then turned the bow into the storm and returned to sea.

In the small hours of the morning as the storm was abating, Dreyer turned back to shore and, among the wreckage of the other boats, found a lone survivor.

It was fisherman John Aries, who was clinging to a life ring and was so shocked that he could not speak.

Following this tragedy, Pattie Price, whose own life had been saved by a RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) lifeboat in the English Channel, began a letter writing campaign to motivate for the formation of a sea rescue organisation in South Africa.

Captain Bob Deacon and Ray Lant were the first volunteers to respond to this call and in 1967 the South African In Shore Rescue Service (SAISRS) was born.

SAISRS soon became the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) and, to this day, all rescue crew of the NSRI are unpaid volunteers.

The organisation now has more than 1 000 highly trained volunteers at 31 bases around the coast and five inland dams.

For the past 10 years NSRI has become proactive with water safety education, having launched its Water Wise Academy, whose mandate is to target child drowning prevention and create awareness strategies.

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Academy

The academy has 12 instructors spread from Soweto, to Ceres and Nyanga, and their job is to teach children how to avoid danger, what to do in an emergency, who to call for help and give them the confidence to initiate basic bystander CPR while waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

To date, the academy has taught more than 1.3-million children from disadvantaged communities about basic water safety.

I have volunteered for 18 years, during which time the NSRI has grown tremendously, not only in the number of bases and crew, but as an organisation.

We have followed current corporate trends regarding safety and how each base is run with regards to corporate governance.

The NSRI now has a training centre in Cape Town from where we run numerous development courses for our crew, from radio operators to our big boat Coxwains.

At Richards Bay Station we constantly inspect our equipment to ensure it is always up to standard for a rescue.

Every rope, radio and life jacket is in its place and well maintained.

To keep costs down, we take care of as much of the maintenance ourselves, which is only possible with the right volunteers.

Our dedicated volunteers have various backgrounds, including a Telkom technician, electricians, engineers, a teacher, administrators, scholars, housewives, a paramedic, mechanics, a safety officer, a draughtsman, a nurse and a security officer, to mention a few.

All these volunteers bring unique skills to the table and come together for the sole purpose of making a difference in someone’s life, by either assisting them in some way or saving their lives.

It is not just this ‘band of brothers’ that keeps the Richards Bay NSRI station going, but also the unwavering support from our families and local community.

From providing accommodation for our head office visitors, to fumigating our station, supplying bolts for repairs or even staff cutting our lawn, every little helps as much as making a financial contribution or partaking in our various competition initiatives.

Over the next few weeks we will be running profiles on each of Richards Bay’s long-standing NSRI crew, to enable the public to put faces to some of our volunteers, and to help the public understand what we are here to do for you.

Should anyone wish to contribute to the NSRI in any way, our emergency number is 082 9905949.

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