NSRI responds to fatal drowning at Gonubie River

BCMM (Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality) lifeguards, while on duty at Gonubie Beach, were alerted by a man running towards the lifeguards, raising the alarm, reporting a drowning accident almost a kilometer upstream on the Gonubie River.

BCMM lifeguards responded while alerting NSRI East London, Priority Care ambulance services and the SA Police Services.

On arrival on the scene BCMM lifeguards initiated CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) efforts on an adult male who had been rescued from the water by a local teenager.

Lifeguards were joined on the scene by paramedics but despite extensive CPR efforts, after all efforts to resuscitate the man were exhausted, sadly the man was declared deceased by paramedics.

The body of the man, age 30, from Johannesburg, has been taken into the care of Police and Government Health Forensic Pathology Services.

Police have opened an Inquest docket.

Condolences are conveyed to family, friends and colleagues, of the deceased man.

It appears that three friends, work colleagues from Johannesburg, were visiting the river when, we believe, 2 of the men were swimming when the one man got into difficulties disappearing under water.

3 locals, an adult man and 2 teenagers, brothers, had reportedly seen the incident occur and one of the teenagers went to the man's aid where, assisted by his brother, he was able to locate and recover the man from the water and rescue him to the shoreline. The local adult man had run down to the beach seeking help and raising the alarm.