Renaldo Arthur was sitting at the benches behind the trees in Kleinmond Harbour. When he heard shouting coming from the Harbour wall +-70m away. Investigating the commotion He noticed 3 people in distress in the water. So he ran over to the Harbour wall to try and help them, injuring his knee in the process.
Schalk Boonzaaier, NSRI Klienmond station commander, said:
There were two women and one man in the water when he got to the Harbour wall. The man was trying to save one of the women but was unsuccessful and had to swim back to hold on to the steps of the Harbour wall, or risk drowning himself. The woman he tried to save made it to safety. The other woman was really struggling, her head went under the water a few times.
Renaldo then decided that he had to jump into the water to save her. A second man, Dustin, jumped in shortly after to help. Renaldo reached the drowning woman and held her up a bit but in her panic she lashed out at him, grabbing him tightly around the neck and even knocked out his teeth.
At that point Raowi, a Overstrand Municipality worker, threw the pink buoy stationed at Kleinmond Harbour towards the people in the water. Renaldo and Dustin managed to get the woman to hold onto/lay on the pink bouy, pulled the buoy by the strap towards the safety of harbour wall and got her out of the water.
The alarm was raised.
NSRI Kleinmond Crew arrived shortly after having received an alert from Warrant Officer Appolis of Kleinmond Police and NSRI Crew members administered first aid, an ambulance was dispatched.
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