Volunteer surf life saving patrols have finished for the season on our local beaches, including on the Sunshine Coast and Rainbow Beach.
However, statistics reveal beachgoers are still not heeding the warnings to swim between the flags.
Volunteers across Queensland, including the Sunshine Coast, North Barrier, Wide Bay Capricorn, Brisbane and the Gold Coast performed 1052 rescues this season, an increase of almost 200 on last season, with the highest number of drownings recorded in the past three seasons.
Surf Life Saving Queensland Chief Operating Officer Greg Cahill said the efforts of volunteer surf life saving members did not go unnoticed.
“It has been a busy season with our volunteers keeping almost 4.3 million beachgoers safe, performing 1052 rescues and 14,657 first aid treatments within the seven month period.
“We are disappointed that the number of drownings have increased.
“We had a decrease in the number of drownings outside of patrol areas during the 23/24 Season so to have the number increase to the highest we’ve seen since 2022/23 tells us that people aren’t heeding the warnings and continue to put themselves and others at risk by swimming in non patrolled areas,” he said.
The number of first aid treatments (14,657 up from 9357 last season) and preventative treatments (109,760 up from 88,383) also increased partly due to an influx of blue bottle jellyfish across South East Queensland.
“To all our volunteers, we thank you for helping to make Queensland’s beaches a safer place to swim and for returning Queenslanders home safely to their friends and family,” Mr Cahill said.
“Our attention now turns to North Queensland who will continue to patrol throughout the cooler months with our volunteer lifesavers in the five other regions to return to the beaches in September.”
