‘Swimming for our lives’: Drowning death toll tracking up since 2018

When Gurdeep Singh learnt he was face down in the water when a lifeguard found him, he knew he was extremely lucky to be alive.

Another “30 seconds” and Singh would have joined New Zealand’s alarming drowning death toll.

Last year, there was a provisional 93 drownings, the worst since 2008, and this year is off to a bad start including six Auckland deaths in a single weekend.

There are several factors lifeguards and advocates believe are contributing to our drowning toll including a lack of education, unpatrolled beaches, Covid and our warming climate.

They say more needs to be done to keep Kiwis safe in the water and have pleaded with beach-goers to rethink their approach to swimming in the ocean.

It was November 2021. Gurdeep Singh and his sons were swimming at Karekare beach on Auckland’s West Coast in chest-deep water when they got into trouble.

“The waves came very quickly, five, six, seven waves. I don’t know what happened.”

And the waves kept coming, every few seconds. Water entered Gurdeep’s lungs.

“I realised we are going to drown soon.

“When the waves went away, there was a gap, I screamed out for help, three or four times … but no one heard [me].”

Gurdeep’s sons were about 15 metres away, treading water.

“We were swimming for our lives,” 16-year-old Manveer Singh said.

It was November 2021 when Gurdeep Singh and his sons were swimming at Karekare beach. Photo / File

“I didn’t realise how strong it was until I tried to swim against it.”

Manveer said he and his younger brother were panicked but OK.

“We were standing on a sandbank and a wave came and swept us out. It was chest depth and 10 seconds later I couldn’t touch the ground.

“My brother was closest to me. We all know how to swim so I was telling him to stay afloat and when the waves come, shut your mouth, you don’t want water in your lungs.”

Gurdeep tried to get to his sons, but as he was swimming toward them, he blacked out.

Back on the shore, the lifeguards had already finished their shift. Guard Shalema Wanden-Hannay was heading back to the beach to get the jandals she left behind when she saw people in trouble in the water.

Shalema called for help from the other lifeguards back at the club and then swam out.

“I managed to find [a man], head down in the water that basically to me appeared to be dead.”

When Gurdeep was taken back to shore, his body was floppy and lifeless. He was given CPR until he started gasping.

“Another 30 seconds, even, we would not have been able to get him back,” Shalema said.

“It’s really had a big impact on me. Even though it had a positive outcome, it’s still affected me deeply.”

The boys were brought to shore and Gurdeep was taken to the hospital.

Speaking through tears, Gurdeep recalled how his last memory of the incident was seeing his boys in the water.

“I tried to ask the doctors … what happened to my family … I thought they were dead.”

It was not until more than an hour later, when his wife arrived at the hospital, that he realised his boys were OK.

“They are real heroes, the lifeguards.”

Gurdeep Singh says the lifeguards at Karekare beach that rescued him and his sons are heroes.

Lifeguards’ plea: Swim between the flags

Three generations of Shalema’s family volunteer at Karekare Surf Club. That day in November, her husband and her daughter, Jess Wanden-Hannay, a patrol captain, helped her rescue the Singh family.

Her father, Karel Witten-Hannah, is a life member of the club.

Shalema urged people to choose patrolled beaches to swim at and to swim between the flags.

“Check the SafeSwim app before you go to the beach,” Shalema said. The app displays which beaches have lifeguards and the hours their working hours.

“Only swim at surf beaches where there are lifeguards on or if you’re an experienced surf swimmer and don’t overestimate your abilities in water environments.”

Karel, Shalema’s father, became so concerned about people getting into trouble in the water after hours that now, once he has finished his patrols on Saturday and Sunday, he stands on the beach with his fins, radio, buggy and a flotation device.

Karekare Surf Club life member Karel Witten-Hannah. Photo / Steven McNicholl

“It was doing my head in,” he says, about one Christmas period where there were 15 after-hour rescues at Karekare in two weeks.

He stands on the shore until 7pm, counting people’s heads in the water to make sure he “still has everybody” after each set of waves comes in.

He will speak with people about their swimming plans as they arrive on the beach and stop them from going into the water at dangerous places.

“It means I can sleep more comfortably when I do go home from the beach because I know that people are being safe.”

Sir Bob Harvey, another long-serving lifeguard at Karekare Surf Club and former mayor of Waitakere city, said New Zealand needed after-hours lifeguards patrolling beaches in the evenings in summer.

Sir Bob Harvey, pictured at Karekare Beach, says now is the time for New Zealand to start after-hours lifeguard patrols. Photo / Dean Purcell

Over the past four years, more people have started coming to the beach in the evening, he said.

“Suddenly the summers are intensely hot, the evenings are not cooling down. Five o’clock has intense sun on the West Coast.

“We need to rethink our after-hours system.”

Free swimming lessons also needed to be accessible to all New Zealand children, Harvey said.

“My whole generation, we were taught to swim at school.

“But now, for kids, if your parents don’t have money to take you to a swim school, I don’t know what you do.”

Surf Lifesaving Northern Region is currently trying to secure an extra $455,000 in Auckland Council funding which, among other priorities, would allow all six West Coast beaches worked by guards to be patrolled for between two and seven more weeks.

Surf Lifesaving Northern Region chief executive Matt Williams told the Herald earlier this week there were plans to extend patrolling hours at West Coast beaches until 7pm.

Jess Wanden-Hannay, a patrol captain at Karekare Surf Club, said Covid-19 restrictions that prevented other recreational activities, like travelling overseas, meant more people were visiting the beach.

Wanden-Hannay said the rescues she had been involved in happened when the surf was smaller.

Jess Wanden-Hannay is a patrol captain at Auckland's Karekare beach. Photo / Supplied

“What I think happens is people come to the West Coast, expecting these powerful waves rolling in, but instead they see these beautiful small little waves and are more enticed to go in and perceive it as safer when in fact, it’s not and there are still those same hazards.”

Last weekend, six people drowned in three days. In a statement, Surf Lifesaving New Zealand said all the deaths occurred at beaches that were either unpatrolled or outside regular patrol hours.

In 2022, 93 people drowned–the highest annual toll since 2008. So far this summer (since December 1, 2022), 32 people have drowned in New Zealand.

Water Safety New Zealand provided the Herald with an extract of provisional data from its database Drownbase. It shows there have been 15 drownings this year (January 1-24), fewer than at the same point last year when 21 people had drowned.

Nine of the 15 deaths were at a beach. In 10 cases, the person was swimming, while two people died while rescuing others.

Fourteen of the 15 people who have drowned this year have been males, while males have made up 82 per cent of drowning victims in the last 10 years.

Water Safety chief executive Daniel Gerrard said the statistics represented a trend of “men behaving badly”, whether that was not wearing a lifejacket while on a boat or going diving alone.

“It’s a challenge … we need to work with this group to help find some logical solutions.”