Shark Bite Trauma kits will be publicly available at more than 120 Surf Life Saving Clubs up and down the NSW coastline following a horrific summer of attacks on and beyond the Northern Beaches coastline.
The kits are placed on surf club exteriors for the public to access in emergency situations when lifeguards or lifesavers are not available; which will be particularly important at dawn and dusk before patrols when shark activity is most prevalent.
The potentially life-saving equipment was unveiled at the site where local surfer Mercury Psillakis was killed by a shark last year.
“Here on the Northern Beaches, we’ve seen tragic incidents over the last 12 months. As a result of this, we decided we would launch the shark bite trauma kit here at Dee Why Surf Club to ensure that the community, the surfers and the swimmers’ safety are all there to enhance that resilience,” Surf Life Saving NSW CEO, Steve Pearce said, standing outside Dee Why Surf Life Saving Club to reveal the new addition of the Shark Bite Trauma kit yesterday, 28 April.
“So if there was to be an incident here on Dee Why Beach, people would ring triple zero, they would run up to the surf club, they would grab both the defibrillator and the trauma kit, go down and start doing that first aid before the arrival of the other emergency services.”
The equipment inside the kit does not need formal medical training to use; however, there is a QR code on the box that people can scan to access guided instructions of how to use the wound wraps and tourniquet that are available inside.
“With a shark attack, it’s the blood loss that can really be tragic. So if we can stem the blood loss by getting the tourniquet on, which is what the main part of the shark kit is, it will significantly lower that chance of significant blood loss,” Lachlan Pike, Dee Why Surf Life Saving President, said.
The new equipment comes as volunteer surf lifesavers wrap up their patrols until next summer, as well as shark drone monitoring operations. In addition to the Shark Bite Trauma kits, the public also has access to a defibrillator placed on Surf Life Clubhouses and another community funded shark bite kit found nearby in Dee Why, as well as other sites on the Northern Beaches.
Surf Life Saving NSW typically shuts down six to eight beaches up and down the coastline every day due to shark sightings. Just months after the shark attack in Dee Why last year, 27-year-old local musician Andre de Ruyter was bitten by a shark at North Steyne and had his leg amputated. He was dragged to the sand by fellow surfers, where members of the public were forced to perform an initial emergency response.
On the same day, on the Northern Beaches, an 11-year-old boy was knocked off his board by a shark in Dee Why, and a rider in Freshwater experienced the same event shortly after. Outside of the LGA, days apart, a 12-year-old died from a suspected bull shark attack at Shark Beach in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, and another man was attacked at Point Plomer.
During this unprecedented time of shark attacks, the State Government and local councils have banded together to ensure more measures like these shark kits are applied to increase the survival chances of the public affected.
“Northern Beaches Council has been extremely supportive of this initiative, basically because the Northern Beaches have been the focus of the shark activity and these shark bite incidents over the summer period. We have seen more sharks, and we have closed more beaches than we have in the last decade of Surf Life Saving. We know that there’s higher shark activity, and so the shark bite trauma kit is just another mechanism within the broader framework for the New South Wales State Government to ensure the community safety,” Mr Pearce said.
“We have seen more sharks, and we have closed more beaches than we have in the last decade of Surf Life Saving.”
It is encouraged that the public inspect these kits and become familiarised with the equipment, but they are reminded to only remove the items in an emergency situation, so it is ready to use if the time were to ever arise.
“I’m very thrilled to see that we have more shark kits available now, and that importantly they are open to the public, because it is quite often the public themselves who will witness and be with someone who is in trauma first,” Northern Beaches Mayor Sue Heins shared.
“I would really encourage the public to be curious, have a look, but actually make sure that you learn what should be in those kits and boxes, to make sure that what is there is really there for when an emergency actually happens.”
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