Prime video. That is it for us
(DRAMATIC MUSIC)
OSHER GUNSBERG: On Bondi Rescue... Just hold them up, buddy.
..the first rescue for some junior lifeguards.
It was all him. It was all him. Wow! How good, bro?
Come in here.
And a first for Jackson.
I'm feeling a bit nervous at this point,
but I'm gonna have to do it.
A search is on.
A man capsized near cliffs.
Just miss it by a wave is life or death.
(HELICOPTER WHIRRS)
SONG: # Take me back to the
# Sweet times, the hot nights
# Everything is gonna be alright
# In the summertime
# Baby, in the summertime
# That is where I'll be. #
(WAVES LAP GENTLY)
'Boondi'...
..a local Indigenous word meaning
'the noise made by sea waves'.
(WAVES CRASH)
I'm doing the welcome today
on behalf of the Bidjigal people
and the Gweagal people.
I must acknowledge the Gadigal people as well,
who have also been here for many, many generations
since first sunrise, first day.
This place is as much yours as it is ours.
My culture is your heritage
and we need to look after it...
..together.
(CLAPPING STICKS CLAP)
TROY: January 26,
and this is a different way of celebrating Australia Day.
(DIDGERIDOO PLAYS)
It's the inaugural Reflection Day.
It's a sign of reflecting on the past
and putting hope into the future.
This is the first time this has ever happened down at Bondi.
Change is important. You know, it's not a day of celebration.
It's more a day of reflect and respect
and acknowledgement to the oldest culture in the world.
Troy Quinlan grew up at Bondi.
It's also in his blood.
As a lifeguard, you know, you really respect the area and the elements
and the culture around the area.
So it's just an amazing experience.
After the ceremony, I met with Kevin on the beach
and he ended up doing the smoking ceremony.
I felt a little bit of goosebumps when it was happening.
(DIDGERIDOO PLAYS)
That's quite special and it's kind of a way of a new start.
Really big honour to be a part of.
Yeah.
And it's come from a good place. Yeah.
We got to do it in your office. Yeah!
(BOTH LAUGH)
Thank you. Thanks, brother.
Enjoy the rest of your day. You too.
Thanks, mate. Thanks.
(LAIDBACK MUSIC)
Today definitely shows that there is change in the air
and I'm proud to be part of the change
and, yeah, could say proud to be an Australian.
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
HOPPO: It's a public holiday today. It's a big crowd.
North Bondi is just really chock-a-block at the moment.
It's gonna be 30-odd degrees today.
A lot of people out in the sun.
So we need to be on the ball,
not only in the water but also on the beach today.
ALL: We love Bondi! (GIRL SHRIEKS)
My bikini only comes out one day a year and here's my booty.
(LAUGHS)
Sun's out. There's a great crowd here. What's there not to like?
Just means coming to Bondi Beach
and wearing a banana outfit, you know?
Bondi is a circus.
But sometimes performances go wrong.
We met him yesterday, so... (LAUGHS)
Captured on his friend's phone.
Pressure is on.
And then...then he... (BLEEP)!
(BOTH LAUGH)
(LAUGHTER)
(OMINOUS MUSIC)
JACK: See this guy did a backflip and messes it up
and he's sort of stayed on the ground.
Has he done something to himself?
I thought he was just mucking around.
He was getting filmed by the girls.
And I'm like, "Oh, no, this is serious. He's hurt himself."
So, buddy, what's your name, sorry?
Jacob. Jacob.
I'm not too worried because he's sitting up,
he's grabbing at his ankles,
so it rules out a spinal injury.
Jacob, can you push? Uh...yeah.
Little bit? How hard?
Oh, it hurts right now.
Like, out of 10, with, like, 10 being the worst pain ever,
one being nothing.
Six maybe. OK, pull.
Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. Uh, yeah, that hurts.
Do you think it's broken?
I think it's just a sprain and a lot of swelling.
I reckon you'd be in a lot more pain if it was broken.
Peacocking and sort of blokes that age down here
can be a bit of a recipe for disaster
'cause they like to act macho and tough.
I was doing a backflip, but I landed like kinda bad.
Poor Jacob didn't look tough when he was on the ground
with his ankle in the air.
(GIRLS AND JACOB SPEAK INDISTINCTLY)
He's gonna be fine, but his biggest bruise
is probably gonna be to his ego.
My favourite thing to do on Australia Day is go to the beach.
(KIDS SCREAM) You can celebrate being Australian.
Australia's just a good country and I love it.
(SHRIEKS) Yeah! Yeah!
A day at the beach is one of the great Australian traditions.
At Bondi, generations of kids
have been inducted into the joys of the surf.
There's a strong surf culture down here
which starts at a very young age.
You just have to look out here at any given day
and you'll have kids from two years and up
just getting amongst it.
Young surfers have their own Aussie slang.
They're called grommets or groms.
That's been around forever, that word.
We were grommets.
Um, my son's a grommet.
I started surfing down here at North Bondi when I was four years old.
That's kind of where my love of surfing started.
Yeah, look where I ended up.
Today, surfers of all ages revel in the swell.
But the rips are no fun for swimmers.
I just had this feeling that it was gonna get busy.
So I'm watching the south corner... (WOMAN SCREAMS)
..and I just hear this scream.
Oh, shit. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
And looked around, and sure enough, there was two people in trouble.
The notorious Backpacker's Rip strikes again.
Chappo has seconds to decide whether to paddle out.
They were screaming, so they were panicking.
They were in trouble.
You know, and they can fatigue really quickly.
So I had to get out to them quickly.
Before I could even get the board off the buggy,
two very unlikely people came to the rescue.
Lifeguards aren't always the closest people.
Often, it's surfers in the water.
When people start to panic,
seconds can be the difference between life and death.
Surfers are our friends, but this one's pretty crazy.
CHAPPO: There's two people in trouble about 50 metres out
in Backpacker's Rip.
OSHER: Before Chappo gets out,
two surfers come to the rescue.
As surfers, we just help anyone in trouble
when they're in the ocean.
We learn that at an early age.
A young grommet surfer has used his board
to keep the drowning swimmers afloat.
When I got there, the little grommet had passed them the board
and he was basically performing the rescue for me.
A father and daughter cling to the grommet's board.
The father was really breathless.
It was pretty impressive that
these two little grommets, when they're in there,
just to be aware that they were in trouble.
That's hard enough in itself,
let alone actually performing a rescue.
And so I thanked the boys and then I took over
and I don't think I did a great job at it, just quietly. (LAUGHS)
# Now give it a beat... #
Yeah, he's got two on the board.
The kid with the rash on is facing him.
Yeah, he's doing the good old traditional, unconventional rescue.
So awkward!
I don't even know what position you call that.
It's sideways, upside down, back to front.
It's great entertainment.
We get a bit of a laugh out of it.
The grommets just carried on surfing after the rescue and...
..and I just wanted to congratulate them
on basically saving these two people's lives.
Local legends Freddy and Yocham
eventually emerge to debrief on their heroics.
Was that your first rescue? Oh, yeah.
First rescue? Yeah.
How old are you? 10.
Wow! (LAUGHS)
What a fantastic rescue. It was all him. It was all him.
It was all him? It was all you. He just called me after it.
Maybe you can be a lifeguard one day, huh?
Y-yeah.
Yeah, we'll give 'em a little Aussie hero status, for sure.
It's a great story.
Chappo got them both on.
And, like, which is really, like, challenging
because it's a...
Like, it's a big board, but for three people, that's really hard.
Plus with the big rip going out there as well.
And then Chappo brang them a little bit that way
and then they got a wave in.
They did save the day,
and there's a lot of good kids coming up, great surfers,
turning into great little watermen
and, um, you know, the future's looking bright.
Thanks for the chat. Sweet. See ya.
TROY: It's the end of the day
and we haven't had too many incidents on the beach.
Usually down here on the 26th of January,
you'll see across the beach people partying and just going crazy
and today it was completely different.
It was more of a day of reflect and respect.
Hopefully it never goes back to the way it used to.
Bondi's lifeguards are elite watermen.
As first responders, they also need to be highly trained at first aid.
Minor cuts and abrasions, bandaging, fin chops -
we're expected to know how to do all of it.
Somebody let go of their board and their fin got me in the finger,
so it sliced it right open.
While most situations are minor,
no-one knows better than Jackson that a potentially fatal emergency
is never far away.
I've been here nine years now and I've seen some heavy stuff,
picking up some bodies out of the water.
I've been unfortunate enough to lose a couple of patients.
It certainly takes its toll, but it's all a part of the job
and a part of what we do as a big team.
Yeah? Yep, buddy.
I was sitting in the tower.
I sort of just heard a bit of panic coming from behind the gate.
MAN:
Yes?
MAN:
JACKSON:
Come in here.
Thank you.
The first thing I noticed when I saw her,
she had quite blue lips
and a distinct, like, rash on... all over her back.
14-year-old Chelsea and her parents are visiting from South Africa.
So what's happened?
MAN:
OK.
Has she got any allergies at all?
WOMAN:
We needed to work out what had happened to her.
We needed to use a process of elimination.
WOMAN:
Beardy and Jackson need answers fast.
She's having a reaction. Her lips are all swollen up.
Yep. Have you been in the water? No.
We asked whether she was in the water
or anything she'd been in contact with.
Ambulance.
Bondi Beach.
It's the lifeguard tower.
Can you feel any restriction breathing in your throat?
We aren't getting the answers we needed,
so we're just trying to work out what it is.
Then crucial information from Chelsea's dad.
Oh, OK, yeah. Yeah.
Dad tells us she's had prawns.
So straightaway, for me, anaphylaxis.
Yeah, I think probably maybe a bit of anaphylaxis to it.
Yeah, we can have an EpiPen. We've got an EpiPen there.
With the EpiPen,
you put that straight into a patient's leg
and that administers life-saving adrenaline.
We're gonna call the paramedics to come down.
We do all the training down at the beach with the EpiPen,
but I've actually never administered the pen before.
It's not an easy technique.
Both the ends actually look quite similar.
There's a button on one end.
And if you put it in the wrong way,
you get the needle straight in the thumb.
And it is a thick-gauge needle.
I was about to give her the pen and I was reading the instructions
on the proper technique.
I'm feeling a bit nervous at this point.
I honestly think I'd be better off paddling out in 8-foot surf
trying to pick up a patient.
But I'm gonna have to do it.
JACKSON:
MAN:
OK. Two hours.
OSHER: 14-year-old Chelsea has been rushed to the tower by her parents.
Lifeguards suspect she's suffering an allergic reaction
after eating prawns for the first time.
BEARDY: Anaphylaxis, food, seafood.
We're administering an EpiPen.
Chelsea's finding it quite hard to breathe
and her airways are actually beginning to close up.
Yeah, we're just gonna give you an EpiPen.
This is the first time I've used this EpiPen.
So I'm feeling a bit nervous.
I've gotta get the adrenaline straight into Chelsea
while we've got the ambulances on their way.
Alright.
This is interesting.
MAN: It's OK, it's OK, it's OK. (CHELSEA GROANS)
One, two... That's alright. It's OK. It's OK.
Yep. (PEN CLICKS)
Yep. There you go. That's OK.
It'll make you feel better. That's alright. That's alright.
(GROANS)
How are you feeling? Better?
A little bit. A little bit?
Yeah.
As soon as I administered the pen into Chelsea's leg,
within moments she was feeling a thousand times better.
CHELSEA:
Well, it's a first for everything. First time...
It was the first time I've given an EpiPen too.
WOMAN: Oh! Wow.
So I tried to act like I knew what I was doing, but...
Think we got it in there. Just stuck in!
(ALL LAUGH) Yeah.
You look like you're feeling much better.
Yeah? That's good.
I know the next time that I'm facing a situation like this,
I'll be a lot calmer because I know exactly what to do.
The ambos feel as though it's the safest thing
to take her back to the hospital
to make sure she's OK.
Jacko's developing really well as a lifeguard.
He's really picked the reins up and is tracking really well.
That might be her first and last prawn
and hope she enjoyed it because, um...
Instead of the prawns,
she might have to stick to just the hot chippies.
Serving as a lifeguard is a dream for many
but a reality for just a chosen few.
For 21-year-old Chase,
pulling on the famous Bondi blue was his calling.
I was 17 when I first started down here and still at school,
which was pretty lucky for me to get this job
and got to finish my end-of-year exams
while I was still working down the beach on my breaks.
Growing up in North Bondi,
as groms getting little boards and learning how to fish,
it's a great privilege.
And I get to work down here
and start here at such a young age on the beach.
Today, the beach is no playground.
The weather keeps swimmers away.
But lifeguards know emergencies can arise
anytime, anywhere.
We patrol not only Bondi Beach
but an area that stretches all the way up to Sydney Harbour -
10km on a jet ski.
Some of the biggest jobs come around the corner.
KC and Chappo have taken a call from the water police.
There's a report that there's someone in the water
who's fallen off their surf ski
around at Diamond Bay.
Diamond Bay is 3km north of Bondi,
along the cliffs.
Straightaway, our first instinct is we've gotta launch the ski
and...and hopefully get this person while he's still alive.
Yeah?
OK.
It takes us probably five minutes to get around the corner,
but we're a lot closer than the water police
right inside the harbour on their big boats.
Oh, OK.
We're definitely pretty concerned
because it was kind of the unknown that we were going into.
Just looking for a needle in a haystack.
We just know that the report's looking for something green
and hopefully that's the person and not the ski.
CHAPPO: You don't just come back to a beach around there.
You're in front of 30-metre cliffs, so there's nowhere to go.
You don't wanna get washed up on the rocks.
You don't wanna get eaten by a shark.
We don't know how long he's been in the water for.
And you're three or four kays' swim to any beach.
Waves are coming in over your head on the jet ski.
You've got that time and pressure to get to them as fast as you can.
Definitely scary.
It's life or death.
OSHER: A man has fallen off a kayak or surf ski
3km north of Bondi.
If he's still alive,
he risks being smashed against the cliffs.
It's a race against time.
Worst-case scenario is not being able to find him.
You're looking for a needle in a haystack.
A little handle bobbing up in the water.
Just miss it by a wave when you've got the ocean, when it's that rough.
Chase has been searching for over five minutes
when the police arrive.
That's when the police boat finally meets me.
CHASE:
And I say, "Look, I've searched this whole 200-metre area."
I kinda let them go their way
and they're following back my way.
And I was like, "I've already gone that way,
"so I'll go back closer to the cliff."
And on my way back closer to the cliff,
I kinda see the green object.
It's a person still floating.
We both spotted the guy right about the same time.
And they threw the guy straight on board.
And they were very concerned about him as he's been there for a while
just bobbing out in the middle of nowhere.
CHASE:
Got him.
CHASE:
Lifeguards learn the man is 53 and an experienced paddler.
Swept off his ski by a wave,
he swam a kilometre to Diamond Bay,
hoping to make it onto a ledge.
But the swell was too dangerous.
When he was found,
he'd been in the water nearly two hours,
saved by his green life jacket
and a dog walker who called the police.
It's pretty lucky that someone ended up finding him.
Otherwise he could've been there for days.
The man was treated for hypothermia and well enough to go home.
A new dawn brings a new adventure.
On a day off, Chase heads out on his own jet ski
with fellow lifeguard and fishing buddy Max.
So on my days off, I always go fishing.
But this day was just unlike any other.
We tried going out as far as we could - about 30km out.
There's just dolphins jumping everywhere.
They were pretty much catching the wake of our jet skis
and riding them like waves.
Magical.
It was so beautiful to see.
Oh, my God, that thing's huge!
Max caught his first fish, and I'm driving over to help Max out.
But as I'm driving, my rod starts going as well.
Whoa! Yes!
Ohh! I need... (SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY)
Ooh-hoo-hoo!
Max is screaming to help me land his fish, but I'm on mine too.
Ohhh!
Yeah!
Yeah, both at the same time.
Double-hooker! Yee-hoo-hoo!
I wanna land my fish. He wants to land his.
(MAX SCREAMS) Ohhh!
Oh! (LAUGHS)
We got two very nice mahi-mahis.
Max's was the biggest one the pair of us had caught for a while.
And I was looking at his going, "Oh, my God, how good's that?"
And then my one come up.
(SCREAMS)
Yeah! Ohhh!
My one was, I think, 1.4, 1.5 metres long.
Which was about 12 kilos.
You don't get that every day.
(MAX AND CHASE CHEER)
It's as Aussie as it gets when you can come down,
be able to cook up fresh seafood on the beach.
Fish tacos tonight, eh? Yeah!
You're gonna love this.
That's unreal.
Nothing better than fresh fish. Mm-hm.
Nailed it? Nailed it.
Mm-hm. Yep.
That was epic. The best.
The world we live in now, everything's so easily accessible.
So it kind of reflects back to when
people used to have to catch and cook their own food.
Being able to hunt for your own food and cook it up,
yeah, definitely brings it back to what they used to have to do
with the traditional owners of this land.
That is disgusting... (LAUGHS)
..disgustingly good.
(ALL LAUGH)
OSHER: Next time... (WOMAN SCREAMS)
This is drastic now.
..when things go wrong...
We need to go to the last resort.
And... Go!
..lifeguard against lifeguard...
Go. It's on like 'Donkey Kong'.
..with a dirty trick uncovered.
There's been a disqualification. (PEOPLE ROAR)
Captions by Red Bee Media