We have had a tough year weather
wise this year. These are pictures from
the season. This one was taken May
29th – difficult start to the season!
However we have done another
fantastic job this year saving 12 lives
and being involved in 60 incidents.
This is a report of the year, looking at
the positives and negatives for
improvements next year. These
reports have come from our office and
lifeguard daily reports. I inputted the
data monthly off season and weekly
during season.
This picture was taken on 30th June,
one of limited sunny days
The weather didn’t last long as this is a
picture from July.
Credit to our team and lifeguards for
braving the poor weather!
Considering we had a poor summer weather wise we are giving out a lot of safety advice to
members of public. We have also shown that we are enforcing the bylaws speaking to 1,248 cyclists
and 3,468 dog owners. I believe the Brighton seafront office has spoken to more than 19 people
regarding BBQ’ing on the beach. This comes down to us recording what we do better.
Positives:
- Helping find 118 missing people including children
- Dealing with 139 First aids and 60 incidents is brilliant considering the weather
Where I feel we have done better
- BSFO regarding people BBQ
- I think we have had to deal with more ASB than recorded
Daily logs:
Lifeguard daily logs were sometimes a struggle reading this year. I have a few lifeguards where I believe they
would need to improve the way they input data, Statistics and record keeping as we know is only becoming
more important. I have some ideas, maybe for interview were we show potential lifeguards a great and poor
daily log and get them to have a look and tell us what they think. The seafront offices daily logs on a whole
were very good and made it easy for me to input and record.
First and foremost I would like to congratulate everyone, as a team
we have saved 13 lives this year. When you think about it, that
thanks to our service 13 people are still alive today so well done
The table to the left shows which beaches were busiest – please bare
in mind this includes out of season where we have responded from
the office. No surprise as central beaches are busiest.
I believe one beach that has become busier since I worked on the beach (2012) is D5. Mainly it’s becoming a
great beach for families and more residents who like to swim round the buoys due to open water swimming
becoming more popular. I think this is certainly a beach we should tackle lone working. We have also had more
major incidents (fatalities) in Hove over the last couple of seasons, which could be another justification for
having more staff in Hove.
77% of primary and secondary causes of the incidents were behavioural; you could look at this as a positive
because it’s out of our control if someone decides to put themselves at risk however it could also show we
need to carry on improving our education on sea safety.
I also think it is interesting we have dealt with more major first aids then rescues, shows the beaches are
getting more popular and we are dealing with more dry side incidents than water incidents.
Dolphin patrol:
Minor
Jet
Boats
Boats
Safety
First
Missing
Major
Skis (speeding) (area) Advice ASB:
Aid
Person
Incident
127
27
26
154
2
1
13
2
New statistics this year for the boat, they certainly kept busy as we know as they travelled some
distance. This clearly shows we will always have issues with jetskis, it would have been interesting to
compare it to last year, to see if the ‘more buoys’ around the pier paid off. One thing reading their
daily logs is that they made a new relationship with the jetters and they gained our respect. Fingers
crossed this can stay. The boat was involved in a few searches over the summer but mainly involved
in two major incidents, the itv stunt show gone wrong and the paddle round the pier search. A great
piece of kit.
For next year I will be adding statistics for Wildlife, Near misses, Fatalities, Ambo responder tally,
rough sleeper. I will also be doing a monthly newsletter for stats and this will go weekly for
lifeguards in the season!
Interesting statistics
Time of incidents
Time
Number
0600-0900
3
0900-1200
19
1200-1600
24
1600-1900
13
Other
1
This is interesting as we would all expect in Brighton the incidents to occur in the evenings when
people are more likely to be under the influence of drink or drugs. This would suggest to me that in
the future we could attempt to run a service finishing earlier such as 6pm.
Please see these pie charts which helps to understand the stats
Major incidents by location
0%
22%
Craft / Surf Zone
Bathing Zone
Non-Zoned
78%
Incidents by beach / nearest beach location
2%
0%
0%
0%0% 2%
BE01 (D10)
8%
2%
14%
BE02 (D9)
BE03 (D9A)
10%
BE04 (D1)
10%
BE05 (D2)
BE06 (D2A)
BE07
BE08 (D3)
23%
BE09 (D4)
BE10 (D5)
29%
BE11
BE12 (D7)
0%
0%
Major incidents by type
5%
27%
Rescue
Search
33%
Assistance
Near Miss
Major First Aid
Other
17%
0%
18%
Primary and Secondary Incident Causes
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Behavioural
Equipment
Environmental
Physical
Major incidents by responding unit
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Brighton
0%
3%
SFO
2%
3%
2%
Hove SFO
D1
10%
D2
D2A
D3
D4
D5
80%
D7
Major incidents by beach state
39%
LG Season - R/Y Flags
48%
LG Season - Red Flags
Out of season
13%