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Post by Lexica on Jan 22, 2018 7:26:04 GMT
Two boys were spotted caught in 9-foot waves off the coast of Australia. A drone training happened to be going on nearby. The operator of the drone was able to fly the drone directly over the kids and drop a rescue float, giving the boys something to hang onto. The drones are going to be used to spot sharks that frequent the Australian shores where swimmers and surfers are in the water. Being able to drop a rescue float is another great component. This was a world's first water rescue with this new type of drone. The operator was able to launch the drone, fly it to the kid's location 1/2 mile away, and drop the rescue float in under 2 minutes. I love that these drones are being used in rescue operations. There was a young man that went missing in my community and in addition to all of the people combing the area, the father hired drone operators to search in the local foothills next to where the young man went missing. Unfortunately in this case, the boy's body was found in the bushes at a park next to the hiking area. Drone Rescue |
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Post by corinne11 on Jan 22, 2018 7:50:03 GMT
We have a TV show here called Bondi Rescue (Bondi being an iconic beach in Sydney) and each week people get into trouble and need to be rescued. Often they are tourists who see the beautiful beach but may come from countries where they haven't had much experience with the ocean and don't realise how dangerous it can be. Even Australians can become complacent about swimming between the flags.
These boys were really lucky- sadly for many others the outcome is very different.
Corinne
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Post by dewryce on Jan 22, 2018 8:48:37 GMT
That's really cool!
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Post by Lexica on Jan 22, 2018 9:40:56 GMT
We have a TV show here called Bondi Rescue (Bondi being an iconic beach in Sydney) and each week people get into trouble and need to be rescued. Often they are tourists who see the beautiful beach but may come from countries where they haven't had much experience with the ocean and don't realise how dangerous it can be. Even Australians can become complacent about swimming between the flags. These boys were really lucky- sadly for many others the outcome is very different. Corinne I just saw Bondi Rescue after I posted this and I've watched the first and part of the second show so far. I don't think I would be going anywhere near that water knowing the sharks are right there. A shark can swim faster than I can. I can see why they need so many lifeguards at Bondi. Our lifeguards are so much more spread out here, but our beaches don't attract anywhere near the same number of people that Bondi does. I admit, I've had nightmares about sharks since I was a little girl. They terrify me. I grew up swimming at Southern California beaches, spending most days in the water during the summer. I have never been aware of any sharks at any of the beaches here though. I am happy to see Australia investing in those drones and think it will be really helpful in both monitoring the sharks and dropping floatation devices to people so much faster than a person can swim out to them. |
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Post by corinne11 on Jan 22, 2018 9:51:25 GMT
My husband scuba dives and went diving at a local spot ONE WEEK after, sadly a young marine biologist was taken by a Great White there. I was very paranoid but as he said- he dives there regularly. The truth is, if sharks really saw humans as "prey" we would have a lot more attacks than we do.
Because shark attacks are so horrific and very often younger people (surfers, divers) are the ones taken it is terribly tragic. However our whole country is surrounded by coastline- swim in the ocean, there will be sharks. You may not see them but they are there.
When we go to Fiji my husband goes on a shark dive where they empty a wheelie bin of fish offal and the divers stand in front of a coral bombe and take photos. They get bull sharks which are aggressive but they are too busy eating fish to worry about the divers!
He took our 15yr old grandson cage diving with Great Whites - and he even convinced me to go snorkelling out on Benqua lagoon reef where we saw lots of little reef sharks. That's as far as I shall go though!
Corinne
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