Thursday, August 2, 2012

Drowning incidents in Boracay, explained by Lifeguard


There’s already a megaphone, whistle, and a telescope plus the 8 to 5 monitoring by trained lifeguards in 5 towers in the beach front of Boracay.

However the lifeguard admits that there are still some drowning incidents in the island despite of their strict monitoring and patrolling.

According to lifeguard commander Mike Labatiao aside from those who wants to go swimming that are actually taking their reminders for granted, he said that during the habagat season and the weather isn’t good the sea beds are not level and is deeper as it goes further .

This presents greater chances for swimmers to panic and eventually drown.

He also pointed out the difference of sand conditions in the shores of Angol Sation 3 to station 2, and from station 1.

In station 1 he said, there are natural break waters and so the waves dissipates as it reaches the shore.
Labatiao added that they have observed that there are more cases of drowning in the first two mentioned areas compared to station 1.

Meanwhile aside from the natural causes on drowning incidents in the island they have discovered that almost 60% of drowning victims are under the influence of alcohol.

Nonetheless Labatiao stressed that they, at the Boracay Action Group, First Responder, Coastguard and PNP did not fall short of monitoring those who are swimming in the ‘2012 world’s best beach’ island.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If they spent some money and invested the life guards with purpose built concrete observation towers to withstand the high winds and gave them radios and rescue equipment like the Australian life guards have then lives will be saved.

The beach front desperately needs a trauma centre to revive the victims of drowning and heart attacks since the first few minutes you get to administer CPR, oxygen, electric shock, etc. is lost getting them from the beach to the hospital.