Boy dies after going to aid of swimmer
Resuscitation efforts continued from the beach to a hospital in Toti.
IN SPITE of hours of resuscitation efforts, a young boy died after going to the aid of a teenage girl who got into difficulty while swimming at Widenham beach in Umkomaas on Friday, 1 January.
Paramedics responded to the incident at about 5pm.
“The boy jumped into the water and swam out to save the girl who got into difficulty when he was caught in a rip current. Bystanders managed to pull the two on to the beach, but the boy was unresponsive,” said Netcare 911 media liaison, Chris Botha.
“Paramedics crossed a railway line and clambered down a steep embankment with their equipment to get to the secluded beach. When we got to the patient, members of the public were doing effective CPR. Paramedics took over with advanced life support resuscitation and after placing him on a ventilator they secured him on a trauma board and with the help of the SAPS and the public carried him back up the hill to the ambulance, while doing CPR.”
The patient was loaded into a Netcare ambulance and taken to a hospital in Amanzimtoti, where the resuscitation continued for another two hours. Tragically, he died despite the enormous effort by the medical team.”
The girl was treated at the scene and taken by provincial ambulance to a hospital in Toti for further care.
