Bondi Rescue’s Head Lifeguard Calls for Action

With huge numbers of people heading to our water ways and surf beaches during the holiday period and the rising number of drownings, Bruce ‘Hoppo’ Hopkins wants people to remember one simple message which will help save their life. 

FLOAT TO SURVIVE. It’s a simple message but it maximises your chance of survival. “ Said, Hopkins

Waverley Council head lifeguard and star of the hit TV show, Bondi Rescue, has spent over 30 years working as a full-time professional lifeguard at Bondi and has rescued hundreds of people from the surf. His work in drowning prevention was recognised by a recent prestigious “World Leaders Summit” where he was awarded the United States Presidential Gold Medal for his humanitarian work. He is regularly invited to train lifeguards and to assist lifeguard services around the world.

Hoppo is the face and instigator of the ‘FLOAT TO SURVIVE’ campaign which is supported by Waverley, Randwick and Blacktown Councils in NSW. The message ‘FLOAT to SURVIVE’ is being marketed throughout the Local Government areas.

The UNSW conducted surveys last summer to see if the message resonated with their residents. Matt Thistlethwaite MP for Kingsford Smith is championing the message and seeking federal funding to promote ‘FLOAT to SURVIVE’ as a national drowning prevention message. 

“People only remember one or two things. Telling somebody to swim between the flags doesn’t help those enjoying the inland waterways. Float to Survive is a great message. Many people drown because they exhaust themselves before help arrives.” Said Ian Lee from Aquatic Safety Consultants Australia. 

The frustration for Hoppo is seeing record funding for water safety being provided yet drownings are still increasing.                                                                                                                          

“Obviously we are missing something. Going back to basics is the answer. Educating people to stop swimming and float when they get in trouble should be our national water safety message. I’ve seen too many drownings where people struggle and use all their energy and drown because they can’t keep their head above the water. We have to educate people to resist their instinct to struggle and fight the water and simply float”. Said, Hoppo

The water safety message is clear and simple ‘FLOAT TO SURVIVE’. It is a strategy that anyone can use in any aquatic situation whether it is in the surf, creek, river, lake or swimming pool.

Hoppo’s campaign received a confidence boost when he discovered that Britain’s largest ocean safety provider the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) developed a similar water safety campaign a few years ago. Their campaign ‘Float to Live’ is supported by research undertaken at the University of Portsmouth by Professor Mike Tipton. Professor Tipton’s research showed that if people fought the instinct to struggle when in the water and simply floated, they greatly increased their chance of survival.  SAS Australia host, Ant Middleton was also an ambassador for the campaign in the UK.

“Education is a really critical component feeding into preventative medicine. So, if people know what’s going to happen to them when they go in the water, they tend to deal with it better – we’ve done studies that prove that. If they know how to behave and you teach how to behave, then survivability just goes up off the scale. You’ve simply got to have the confidence to do nothing and to fight that instinct to thrash bout and swim”. Professor Mike Tipton MBE, Professor of Human and Applied Physiology. University of Portsmouth.