Help our lifeguards get there in time

“I was just in absolute shock and disbelief at that point…I didn't really know how close it was until I read how they were only going to carry on looking for another five minutes…that really shook me badly when I heard that.” Mandy Price.

A parent's darkest moment would be us not getting there on time

In late November one of the most miraculous night rescues ever occurred nearly 2km out to sea off Lion Rock, Piha. 

It was a rescue where the seconds were literally counting down for a 21-year-old novice surfer. Exhausted, hypothermic, Jamie Campbell clung desperately to his surfboard as night fell, pinning his only hope on a Surf Life Saving rescue. Against all odds, he was found by the infra-red cameras onboard a passing Eagle helicopter who then guided two Surf Life Saving Inflatable Rescue Boats (IRBs) to pluck him to safety.

Days later when interviewed, Jamie and his mother Mandy were still coming to terms with how close he came to becoming yet another terrible drowning statistic. 

“I have to stop thinking about those things because I just get terribly upset and worried because, you know, we were just insanely lucky,” said Mandy.

Jamie had only arrived back in New Zealand the night before after working in Australia for nine months.

Getting together with his mates, Jamie was invited to go surfing at Piha later in the afternoon - something he’d really missed during his time in Oz.

“I'm not a confident surfer. So, I was standing a little more than waist deep. I was just learning the basics like how to push up on the board when the waves doubled in size pretty quick.”

Calling over to his mates they all decided to paddle in. They’d only been in the water 30 minutes but the currents had changed dramatically.  

I didn't realize I was caught in this massive rip. So, I'm paddling for a while. And my mates, I can see them. They're making ground. And I suddenly wasn't. Next thing I knew, I was about 200m out.”

Jamie knew what to do and started paddling sideways, but the waves got worse and suddenly he couldn’t touch the ground and was getting dumped on by massive waves. Out of breath, he could just see Lion Rock drifting away.

For an hour and a half Jamie paddled. But nothing worked, he kept getting sucked out further and further. 

“Then at some point, I was thinking there's nothing I can do here. I just hoped my friends would notice that I've been gone for a while.”

His mates did notice and ran to the North Piha Surf Life Rescue Club, but it was 8pm and it was closed. They then drove to South Piha Club, but that was closed, too.

That’s when they rang 111. 

Maritime Police requested the Eagle helicopter, which was enroute to another incident, be urgently rerouted to Piha.

Piha Search and Rescue were also activated and within five minutes two IRBs were launched into the darkening waters while other rescue teams began land-based scanning.

Meanwhile Jamie was by now over 1.5 km offshore and beginning to lose hope. 

“It was reaching twilight and I was thinking, "s***, this this could be it. This is a terrifying situation."

“We'd looked at all the obvious places, we'd done a bunch of sweeps and were running out of light, so it was just getting dangerous to still be on the water,” recalls Michael Lockie, Piha Surf Lifeguard.” 

After discussions with the Police, the call was made to start putting the boats away. They were on their trailers, being washed down when…
Jamie was hanging on by a thread. Too weak to climb in, the rescuers grabbed him under the arms and hauled him into the boat, quickly covering him with jackets.  Then he lost consciousness. Surf Lifeguard John Palby lay down next to him and wrapped his arms around him, using his own body heat to warm him.

It was a 10 minute ride back to the beach in pitch darkness. A Surf Rescue ute on the beach turned its headlights on to guide them back. Not that Jamie remembers. Just a vague blur of people around him and then waking up in hospital.
Mercifully for Mandy Price, younger brother Liam didn’t call her until Jamie had been rescued and was in the ambulance. 

“Thank God actually, for me, otherwise I'd have been driving out there in a panic.”

Instead, she headed to the hospital and found her son hypothermic and sore from the physical effort of fighting the sea, BUT ALIVE.

Rescues at night are rare for Surf Life Saving, but we do train for every eventuality. We carry powerful searchlights on our IRBs and crew wear individual strobe lights for extra safety. But nothing beats having a pair of ‘Eagle” eyes above.  

Working together with Maritime Police and providing fast, efficient, co-ordinated responses is what literally makes the difference between life and death. 

While Jamie and his mates did everything right, the tough lesson from this incident is that conditions can change very quickly, and people need to be aware of the risks and react to them fast.

Please help us keep your whanau like Jamie safe on our beaches this summer?

Your donation could make a life-saving difference on our beaches:

$500 could go towards training our Surf Lifeguards with the skills they need to save lives at our beaches in day or night.

$350 could ensure our IRBs and trailers are maintained and ready for rescue at a moment's call.

$1,200 could help fund an ATV to tow our IRBs to and from the surf.

$100 could put essential night rescue tools like spotlights and strobes in our IRBs.

Thank you for your generosity. Your kindness will help us reach our goals of reducing the number of drownings in New Zealand and educating beachgoers about the dangers that exist in our coastal waters.