Hennie Niehaus, NSRI Wilderness station commander, said; “At 16h15 on Saturday 25, NSRI Wilderness volunteer sea rescue duty crew, while conducting a fund raising volleyball event at Wilderness Beach in front of the Wilderness sea rescue station, and only an hour after sea rescue volunteers had thrilled the large crowd with a mock sea rescue demonstration in the surf, and during the climactic final match of the fund raising volleyball competition, it was noticed that two men swimming in the surf in front of where the event was taking place were progressively getting into difficulty as they appeared to struggle to negotiate a rip-current that had formed where they were swimming and which had suddenly begun to sweep them out to sea faster than they could swim to shore and very quickly, and without any hesitation, NSRI rescuers identified that both men were in grave danger and turned their full attention to launching a full scale sea rescue operation to go after the two swimmers in difficulty.
“NSRI sea rescue swimmer Torsten Henschel was ordered into the surf to swim after the two men while our NSRI Wilderness volunteer sea rescue duty crew launched our sea rescue craft Die Swart Tobie and responded.
“One of the men (unidentified) had managed to catch a wave safely to shore and he was not injured and Torsten reached the second man, Gerald Akakios, 48, from Las Vegas, USA, approximately between 50 to 100 meters out to sea and found the man struggling to keep his head above water and Torsten secured the man using a floatation rescue device.
“Our sea rescue craft reached them shortly thereafter and the casualty was whisked out of the surf onto our sea rescue craft and brought safely ashore where he was checked out by our medics and he was not injured and required no further assistance.
“The Volleyball match had come to a grinding halt during the rescue operation but resumed after it was confirmed that the casualty was safe and well and not injured following his ordeal.
“The two men were not together but just happened to be swimming in the same vicinity when the rip-current formed and began to drag them both out to sea at the same time.”
