Cape Town - The National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) has released Fluoresceine Dye along the Garden Route to highlight the danger of rip currents.
With many holidaymakers flocking to the coast for the holiday season, the NSRI reminded beachgoers to look out for RIP currents.
Recently, the sea and beach safety organisation used a harmless green dye to highlight rip currents at Herolds Bay and Wilderness beach.
NSRI’s Wilderness station commander, Mike Vonk, said: “Many people find rip currents hard to see, and so we have used Fluoresceine dye in a once-off deployment to highlight a couple of them, so that we could photograph and film the dye being pulled out in the rips.
We will use these photos and video as educational tools to teach beach safety. Many beaches around South Africa have powerful rip currents which can pull a swimmer away from the beach to behind where the waves form in a couple of minutes.
“A rip current will not pull you under the water but will pull a swimmer away from the beach. If caught in a rip, the most important thing is not to panic. Swim out of the current at 90 degrees to the direction in which you are being pulled and use the waves to swim back to shore.
“Or flip on your back and float until the current runs out of strength, and you can swim back to the beach,” said Vonk.
NSRI drowning prevention manager, Andrew Ingram, shared important advice on how to assist a person caught in a rip current, including to call the NSRI for help by dialling 112 from your cell phone, save the NSRI’s National Emergency Operations Centre number: 087 094 9774) or Google ‘Sea Rescue emergency’ for the closest NSRI stations’ number.
“Never go into the water to attempt a rescue without taking something that floats with you,” said Ingram.
The NSRI’s Pink Rescue Buoys are available on many beaches as well as some rivers and dams to be used as emergency flotation.
“Out of 131 rescues that we know of, where a Pink Buoy has been used to help someone in difficulty, 96 of these people needed help because they were swimming in a rip current,” said Ingram.
Cape Times