^^^ given the choice between having my naked butt flashed across the new world-wide or a nice portrait on an easel next to my coffin, at my funeral, I know what I'd rather.

I can't understand why one of the sea rescue blokes didn't jump in the water with him and help him, shark or not, watching the footage of him trying to swim that last two metres was excrutiating, he was so buggered it looked like he was going to drown right under their noses.

Years ago i was of PT Malcolm aprox 50nm of the start Great Australian bight.18 hours steam east of Esperence i was on one of 2 boats trawling around .The other boat needed to transfer crew to our boat as we were heading in .
The conditions were to rough to jump accross as both boats were surging 2m up and down nose to nose ... after several attempts passing gear and food to the other boat.... it was to risky to jumping .

The ocean looked oillyish , the last opertunity was for them to jump into the water and swim across.

The boats backed up to each other the first fella jumped in and swam for it

But as he hit the water a second person also jumped , Fully clothed it looked easyish with in 30 second it became clear both were not going to make it.


Ive been in that situation willing the person to the side of the boat, rope, pole and tyre of the side , i watch the fear in the eyes, the arms go up and down , the last grasp of effort and air ,helpless to the fact i could not enter the water myself yet i was with in 1m

The second skipper on the top deck jumped in and hitting a rope on the way down flipping him.

The boat surged and the nets pushed on on one fellas head, as he took his last breath and began sinking ,the tyre sunk enough for him to put his arm around it underwater on a surge and wes lifted this fella, tyre and all back into the boat.

The moral of the story was JUMPING INTO THE WATER FULLY CLOTHED with no life jacket nearlly killed him with in 2 mins and 30m of swimming .

^^^
+1 - agree 110%.

If any of the news Choppers are going to 'participate' in a search and rescue type operation they should at least have some form of floatation device, torch/whistle/flare, water and maybe a couple of carbo bars.

The sort of gear you are talking about (to do it properly) is bulky, heavy and expensive and requires specialist training and years of experience to drop properly and safely. I think the RAC rescue helicopter and the police helicopter can carry and deploy the gear but they would most likely winch him out if they were close enough to deploy it. The best aircraft to carry/deploy SAR gear is the Dornier, it dropped a raft but he was too tired to swim to it. Even if the Ch7 helicopter had something buoyant to throw down to the guy it would have had to have been dropped close enough to hit him on the head, otherwise he would'nt have been able to reach/swim for it.

Very few aircraft in a marine search carry and drop rescue kit, they are there as observers and searchers, other assets are deployed for the actual rescue.

The Dornier is an amazing bit of kit, I think at the moment there are 7 around Australia and they are a Commonwealth asset, if I had a youtube account I'd post some video of one doing some training drops off Dongara two years ago.

I hear what you are saying KOTP, but there is a big difference between the southern ocean in a big swell and the almost perfect conditions that day. Personally I wouldn't have given a second thought to jumping in fully clothed and supporting him for that last metre and helping push him up out of the water whilst the other guys pulled him up.

When you are deep in hypothermia the mind plays games, its common in those mountaineers found after dying of hypothermia that many had taken a lot of their clothes off, that man was very lucky and must have hell of a lot of will power. So sad for the others and their families.