By Margaret Maccoll
Noosa Heads Surf Lifesaving Club hosted a breakfast on Friday to highlight its achievements, recognise a lifesaver for his extraordinary rescue and thank sponsors and supporters.
SLSQ’s Caitlyn Akers praised Noosa for its “unique” support of Peregian Beach, and said how important their role was for Tourism Queensland to have the bathing public feeling safe.
In the past year, there have been 650,000 preventative actions and 2500 lives saved in Queensland, thanks to lifesavers, she said.
“That’s 2500 families who have people coming home with them because of the work we do,” she said.
The club re-enacted the awarding of a National Rescue of the Month recognition to surf lifesaver Robert ‘RJ’ Lemon that had been officially presented at Parliament House last week.
RJ said on 21 June he’d finished work at the clubhouse about 1pm and headed off to flat rock with his mate, Sam White, to go spear fishing.
“Five minutes later, I saw him splashing about 50-80m off shore. I thought it was a shark attack,” he said.
RJ, who had only been with the club for 12 months, swam toward him to find a stingray had shot a barb through his leg, was still attached and was trying to swim away dragging Sam with it. RJ swam both Sam and the stingray to shore then signalled to a park ranger for a knife to detach it.
Former club president Ron Lane said RJ’s actions showed what lifesaving was all about “getting the confidence and training to save a life”.
The event was overshadowed by the loss of former Ironman Dean Mercer whose funeral many were attending on the day. Flags were flown at half-mast in a mark of respect.
Club president Ross Fisher said it had been a sad time for the club with the recent passing of club patron Garth Prowd and Dean Mercer, brother of club coach Darren Mercer and uncle to Ironwoman Jordan.
“Jordan was to depart to Denmark on Tuesday to compete for Australia. She said, ‘I’m not going’. They said, ‘you are and you’re doing it for Dean’. She went and won gold for Dean,” he said.
