If you’ve spent time on Sharky Beach, Austinmer, Woonona and Puckey’s Beach, you may have seen what’s shown in this article’s picture. But do you know what it is and what it’s for?
It’s an Emergency Response Beacon (ERB), an initiative of Surf Life Saving NSW to enhance safety, primarily on unpatrolled beach and rock platform drowning hotspot locations.
An ERB consists of a telephone and camera triggered with a button pressed by anybody who sees someone in trouble that needs help. The person pressing the button is put in immediate contact with a 24/7 Duty Officer at the SLSNSW State Operations Centre who can talk with the person, give instructions and dispatch the nearest suitable emergency resource(s) to that location.
ERBs are solar powered and 4G/5G enabled so potentially provide a vital link for emergency response where phone reception is not guaranteed.
The NSW Government has provided significant funding for ERBs and there are now 53 installed along the NSW coast with plans to add more. All will eventually have rescue tubes attached to assist in bystander rescues. This all sounds great, but after seeing one near me mostly used as a place to lock up bikes, I started to wonder how many people actually knew what it was for.
If there was an emergency in the water or on the beach – would the average person run to an ERB to seek help? Would they even know one was there? And how long would it take for help to arrive?
Last year my UNSW Beach Safety Research Group surveyed 301 people at beaches along the NSW coast (including Sharky Beach) and only 28% had heard of ERBs. Of those, only half actually knew what they were for.
After being briefed about their purpose, most people surveyed thought ERBs were a great idea, but unfortunately felt they’d feel safer going in the water if they knew an ERB was present, which is not ideal! Clearly there needs to be a much improved communication campaign to promote the location and purpose of ERBs. Otherwise, this potentially valuable lifesaving resource will never be as effective as authorities assume.
We also worked out that the average time it would take for different types of emergency services to arrive after an ERB activation was eight minutes although this ranged up to 24 minutes for more remote ERBs and these times doubled outside of patrol season.
I think ERBs are ideal for locations that don’t have mobile phone reception, but in locations that do, it might just be faster, easier and cheaper to alert emergency services by phoning 000.
Ultimately though, when it comes to beach and rock platform safety, anything helps. You can find NSW ERB locations on the Surf Life Saving website.