Doctor Reacts To Dramatic Lifeguard Rescues Bondi Beach

Cheers Dr Mike! Love watching your stuff - always so interesting and insightful, especially when reflecting on our own rescues! The last two in particular, always get us right in the feelings. Appreciate your analysis mate. 💪

I absolutely love Bondi Rescue. I think it's worth explaining that these guys only have basic medical training and often give the green whistle to help patients deal with pain until they get to the hospital. The lifeguards never pretend to be doctors and they highly respect their buddies who are paramedics and come to help.

Aussie here! They give the green whistle BECAUSE it only lasts a few minutes and they need to transport the person across sand which is not only uneven and painful but can take some time to cross, even by vehicle. It will be well out of his system by the time he gets to hospital, lessening considerably by the time he's with the paramedics.

A while back, my husband had a seizure. He fell, turned blue, and I was scared and crying. I remembered Doctor Mike’s reaction videos and knew I had to turn him on his side. Doctor Mike, I’ll be forever grateful for all the videos you put up. You’ve been a direct reason my husband is still alive. Thank you.

Me, a med student, trying to diagnose parallel to Dr. Mike and being way too happy when I ask myself the same questions or think the same things as him 💪🏼

Hey Mike! I worked as a lifeguard and was certified for beach rescue, though I didn't work beaches regularly. To answer your question at 9:00, there is no safer way to bring someone back from the ocean then on the board. While it isn't as fast, we have to be aware that we have absolutely no information about this person and they may have an injury that we can make worse by just swimming or dragging them back. Like you said about the man with the neck injury, we need to make the situation stable to understand the problem and the board is about as stable as we can make it, especially since we can begin CPR while still on the board. Edit: Think you to those who read this, including Bondi Rescue themselves for the informative comment on why we use boards and not jet skis or boats. To those wondering how you do CPR on a board, we are trained to immediately start giving breaths as Dr. Mike talked about in this video. More often than not, we do not do compressions until out of the water, but in some situations where we have grabbed someone in deep water and are waiting for a boat or another reason we aren't able to get back to shore, we need to keep in mind how much time we have to help someone and that sometimes means performing chest compressions on the board which is extremely difficult. Thank you for reading and I hope you all have a wonderful and safe day.

The baby one hits even harder when you know Harries lost his son as a baby, so these cases for him hit different. And the last case makes me sob uncontrollably every time it comes up, how awful to be stuck between your sister and her husband, possibly losing both of them. How awful losing your husband on a vacation trip just out of nowhere. These cases are hard.

As a dad of a 3-year-old, hearing that infant cry brought me to happy, relieved tears!

When they said it was the episode with the man and the woman from the same family, my heart sank. One of the saddest episodes. Bondi is such a great show, but it can be heartbreaking. A real emotional roller coaster.

I once saved my little brother doing chest compressions chest compressions chest compressions. I pulled him out of the pool unconscious and started doing cpr. Paramedics did come and he, thank God, is alive and healthy

For anybody wondering about the Bondi Beach guy, so what happened is that he went to the beach to exercise with his friends. He was a dancer so he needed to stay in shape. Once they were done, they went towards water to cool off. He indeed dove into the water like they said and he slammed his head in the sand. Did not backflip or anything like that. And obviously he did not recover from that accident and he's currently quadriplegic.

It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen the segment with the drowned husband and wife, every single time I see it I get so emotional and feel for the family and my heart totally breaks for the lifeguards and paramedics who dealt with them, one of the saddest moments in the history of the show! In fact if I’m remembering correctly they all had a debriefing session after that experience and actually got a second defibrillator because of it and ran through some logistics to see how they could improve things in the future because it effected all of their emotional health’s very deeply. Lifeguarding is definitely not for the faint of heart!

Doctor Mike, as a paramedic in the field, I can say many times its not our fault when we arrive at a scene late. We would also love to be omnipresent. It increases survival rate of casualties. We are trained and strategically placed to get there in less than 10 minutes from the time of call. Problem is, a lot of people initiate emergency calls after a long time has passed. Whether due to panic or not knowing what to do. We might control our base radius but we cant control what happens before the call reaches us.

Having met these legends on my many trips down to Bondi, they truly work so hard. Here’s a free tip - SWIM BETWEEN THE FLAGS! So frustrating to see many tourists ignore this and put these guys at risk too. They have families too!!

First responders getting to Bondi beach in even 15 minutes can be impressive given the mayhem of that area. Traffic, crowds, events, the overwhelming popularity of that specific beach all play a part in the potential for delays.

The Bondi lifeguards do an amazing job. It’s impossible to stress just how busy that beach gets in the height of summer. We’re talking stadiums full of people in a small area!

As a former lifeguard on a lake, there are jetskis available. However, on the ocean, timing the swells is incredibly difficult in places like this. It can be more hazardous to have a jetski than just a body board.

on your question about getting people back to shore quicker, they do have jetskis that they will use on occasion, but it's my understanding that the rescue boards are the best tool they have when it comes to balancing speed, manoeuvrability, and safety to other swimmers - during peak times at bondi they can have basically the entire shoreline filled with people, where it's just not safe to ride a jetski in the waters. i'm sure there are other factors they have to take into account like operating costs, available manpower etc.

A few years ago while camping with my family, we saw a girl drown in a pool.. We were so many people there, but none of us had noticed her. All of a sudden we see her dad call her name and jump into the water. And he comes up with this little 10-12 year old girl, and she was completely lifeless and blue. It's the most haunting thing I've ever witnessed.. Luckily she very quickly woke up, vomited a bunch of water, and fell unconscious again, but she was breathing! We helped them as much as we could, moving parasols to give her some shade, while the ambulance was on its way. We were lucky that an old diver was at the pool, who knew what to do. My mom and dad drove to the hospital with a bag of clothes to the girl and her father, and they were so grateful for the help, they came over a few days later with a bottle of wine. We talked to the parents, and the mom told us what had happened. Apparently she got kicked in the head and got vertigo, and didn't know which way was up. And after a while, she said she just gave up. That's not something you ever want to hear from your kids.. I'm so glad she turned out ok.

Hi Dr. Mike! I've been a lifeguard for eleven years, and I finally came up with a rhyme to remember what step to do first with CPR (as in, when you pull them out of the water, you start with rescue breaths, and any other time start with chest compressions): "Out on the street, start with the beat. Out of the depths, start with the breaths"! Not a perfect rhyme, but enough to help people remember!