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Darwin Awards
2008 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
Should I include it in the archive?
Vote to tell me what *you* think!

Grafitti Vandals Drown

2008 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

Lifeguards hailed over rescue

January 21, 2008 03:05pm

TWO lifeguards who risked their lives have spoken about the ordeal of recovering two bodies from a flooded Sydney stormwater drain.

One man survived and his two companions drowned after the trio were swept a kilometre down the drain yesterday afternoon.

The three had jumped into the drain through a manhole at Maroubra, on the city's eastern beaches, about 5.30pm.

Police said they were spray painting graffiti on the walls when it started to rain and the drain filled with water, trapping them.

A West Pennant Hills man, 25, and a St Peters woman, 21, drowned. A Pennant Hills man, 27, survived after being swept a kilometre down the drain to Lurline Bay.

The two bodies were recovered from inside the drain after a search by police.

Maroubra lifeguards Peter Halcro, 45, and Paul Moffatt, 35, said conditions inside the drain made the recovery incredibly difficult.

"Inside the drain it was going dark with the surf pounding up through the drain ... while these bodies were just floating around and there was also stormwater coming out the other way," Mr Halcro told reporters.

"We were dealing with dirty water and large surf."

Mr Moffatt, who worked with Mr Halcro to work the bodies out through the bars, towed the body of the woman out to sea, so the rescue helicopter could winch it to a nearby rock ledge.

Gallery: See how the graffiti artists entered the drain.

He said it was one of the trickiest of such operations he had ever done.

The 35-year-old said adrenaline had kept him going through the "difficult" ordeal.

"Now this morning, it's sort of kicked in what's happened," he said.

"It's pretty hard."

Mr Moffatt said the message for the public was not to go in stormwater drains.

"Just don't play in them and hopefully we will never see this situation ever happen again."

Mr Moffatt, who has more than 10 years of experience as a lifeguard, said while the situation was dangerous they were not reckless in their rescue attempt.

"We did have a back-up plan," he said.

"We did know if something was going to go wrong what we would do."

He said they had to climb down the rocks to reach the drain and slide through a small gap with the swell pounding in and out.

"It's all about timing ... we really thought about it, we didn't jump straight in. We knew what we were doing," he said.

"It was just dark sort of in there ... a bit sort of eerie ...

"We grabbed the body then we tied a tube around (it) ... then we got the feet and then Peter held the top of the body and then we slowly pulled it out the gap."

Mr Halcro, who has been a lifeguard for more than 20 years, said the situation was initially confusing and they weren't sure how many people were involved.

"We recovered two bodies then we went in to search for a third," he said.

Both lifeguards were modest about their role in the incident. "That's why we're here," Mr Halcro said.

Randwick City Council provided the men with support after the recovery operation and they underwent an extensive debriefing.

Submitted on 01/20/2008

Submitted by: Derek Woodlands
Reference: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23081978-5001021,00.html January 21st

Copyright © 2008 DarwinAwards.com

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>> Moderator Scores <<

Chip said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
Again more information about this story. Thanks, Derek


Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
Thanks, Derek, we've already received this story numerous times but this does provide a bit more detail.


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