It takes a lot to save others during difficult, life-threatening emergency situations.
For Lee Maree (41) of Oslo Beach a simple lunchtime braai on the beach with friends ended in an unexpected twist recently.
It was an extremely hot day, and groups of people had arrived and were enjoying the sun and the water.
Lee said they were sitting on the beach when they saw a head bobbing in the surf.
At that stage, he didn’t know if the person was a woman or a man that needed help.
Having done lifesaving in his younger days, he knew he could help and started walking towards the shoreline.
Friends of the distressed swimmer approached Lee and asked him to help, and he was able to ask them more about the person in trouble.
He established the person was a 21-year-old man from the Eastern Cape. He was a student visiting the beach with his friends.
Lee said many things goes through one’s head when you are about to jump into rough seas, swim some 600 metres (there and back) out to sea with the possibility of getting sucked into a rip tide, all while bringing the person back to shore.
“Once, you decide to go for it, you forget what could go wrong – and you just go for it,” he said.
Luckily, Lee is fit and he took the rescue calmly in his stride.
“When I reached the man, he was frothing at the mouth in a bad way. He was a minute or two away from drowning. I grabbed him while trying to calm him down by saying ‘thula thula’ and then slowly swam him back to shore,” explained Lee.
By then, his friend Anthony Hooper had called NSRI Shelly and an ambulance had arrived and treated the swimmer.
Asked how he felt saving a life, Lee replied it was a good feeling.
“Having a family myself, it felt good to have saved the life of someone’s child,” he said.
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