Official apathy, it appears, is as much to blame as hostile weather conditions and plain ill luck for the death of Johnson Gabriel, a lifeguard on the Shanghumughom beach who on Wednesday who dived into the sea to rescue a drowning young woman.
It has been a long-pending demand of the lifeguards in this part of the coast that they be equipped with speed boats/dinghies, especially during the monsoons when the coastal waters turn choppy. But the dismal fact remains that their ‘armoury’ still contains only lifebuoys, rescue tubes and ropes, the same life-saving equipment they were issued in 1986 when the service was first launched by the Tourism Department.
‘Nothing changed’
“Nothing much has changed since then. Our demand for boats is several years old. We’ve had accidents before too, but this is the first time that a lifeguard has died since the service was launched on November 30, 1986,” said Zakeer A., lifeguard supervisor on the Varkala beach and an office-bearer of the INTUC-backed All Kerala Lifeguards Association.
“A boat would have made all the difference on Wednesday,” one of the lifeguards who was part of the rescue at Shanghumughom said.
“We still depend on our swimming skills to save people who are sometimes 150 or 200 metres out. Even when we manage to reach them, it becomes doubly hard, even physically impossible, to haul them back to land,” he said.
Around 4.30 p.m. on Wednesday, three of the five lifeguards on the Shanghumughom beach, including Johnson, 43, rushed to save the young woman who apparently dived in as part of a suicide bid. They floundered in a deadly combination of high tide and stiff undercurrents for nearly 15 minutes, remembers Markose, Johnson’s colleague. As the swimmers made for the land, heavy waves hammered them mercilessly against the debris of the broken steps of the beach. It is assumed that Johnson banged his head against a rock and lost consciousness. He was never seen alive again. His body was recovered two days later from near the Valiathura pier. The girl is now recovering at the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital.
Poor conditions
The as-yet unfulfilled demand for better life-saving equipment forms only part of the abysmal working conditions of lifeguards. The men still lack provident fund or insurance coverage. This, despite the fact that several of them have been working for over 15 years. measly ₹815 constitutes the daily wage of a lifeguard; of which ₹100 accounts for risk allowance and ₹15, batta.
“Earlier we were also issued ₹100 daily as food allowance. That was stopped for some reason,” he said.
Today, 219 lifeguards — all male — are on vigil on the beaches dotting the Thiruvananthapuram-Kasaragod coastline. According to the lifeguards, 80 of them are deployed in Thiruvananthapuram district alone — Varkala (20), Shanghumughom (10), Veli (10), Kovalam (32), Poovar (four) and Perumathura (four).
Then, there is the troubling question of age. Many of the lifeguards stationed on the beaches are above 55, but their demand that the Tourism Department fix an age bar, and redeploy over-aged guards in supervisory roles has been ignored.
‘No training’
Yet another demand that has been repeatedly ignored is a request to provide regular training courses. One lifeguard recalls that the only refresher course that he has attended, apart from the initial training on joining the service, was supervised by the Rashtriya Life Saving Society (RLSS) a few years ago.
Over the years, the burden on the lifeguards has only increased. The number of tourists has risen dramatically, calling for constant vigil. Coastal waters in places such as Thiruvananthapuram remain turbulent for much of the year, adding to the problem. And, as one lifeguard pointed out, they are not getting younger, either.
Apathy too, takes different forms. Following Johnson’s death, the two lifeguards who had remained on land were blamed for not diving into assist their colleagues. “We followed our standard operating procedure. Somebody has to deploy the lifebuoys and ropes and help the rescue team on to the beach,” explains Markose.
In the midst of such blame games, one crucial point cannot be forgotten. That, Johnson and his colleagues did what they were trained to do. That they, disregarding the danger to themselves, succeeded in saving a life.
