Lifesavers have expressed alarm at the “horrific” start to the summer holiday period, urging swimmers, particularly men, to avoid taking risks in the water.



Seven people have drowned in NSW alone this week, and police continued to search for a man feared drowned in a river in Wagga Wagga on Thursday, and teenager Tui Gallaher, who went missing at Maroubra beach in Sydney on Tuesday.

A 60-year-old man, Geoffrey Blackadder, died trying to rescue young relatives from a rip at Wooli beach on the NSW north coast on Monday, while another man, aged 56, drowned at Merry beach at Kioloa on state’s south coast.

The body of a 25-year-old man was found in western Sydney on Tuesday morning, after going missing on Monday while swimming in the Nepean river. Two 27-year-old men have also drowned this week, one in Kangaroo Valley in Shoalhaven and another in Wattamolla lagoon at the Royal national park, south of Sydney.

The majority of the deaths have involved men, matching a longer-term trend of males accounting for between 80% to 90% of drownings. The Royal Life Saving Society chief executive, Justin Scarr, described the start of the holiday period in NSW as “horrific”. He also warned that flooding in central Australia posed an added risk of drowning deaths.

Scarr said the overrepresentation of men in NSW’s recent drowning deaths was not surprising. “Men are more likely to overestimate their skills and underestimate how dangerous the conditions might be. They’re more likely to consume alcohol while swimming or boating,” he said.

Scarr said drowning deaths had been reducing generally in the past decade due to a range of factors, including improvements in backyard pool safety, awareness campaigns and improving signage around dangerous rivers.

He said many deaths, including the recent drowning of a Nepalese student in NSW, involved swimmers who had weak water safety knowledge or poor swimming skills. “I just think that we need to look after each other,” Scarr said. “Locals need to look out for visitors and describe to them the safest places to swim. Remind them of the importance of life jackets and the dangers of rivers.”

Surf Life Saving Australia coastal safety and risk manager, Shane Daw, said the spate of drowning deaths in NSW had been alarming and surprising. “We certainly are surprised, any drowning is one too many. At Christmas time, it’s a tragedy, and the key thing that we keep saying to people is water safety has to be paramount at all times,” Daw told ABC. “To have the spate of drowning deaths that we’ve had over the past few days is a tragedy, and it has alarmed us.”

The deaths come as new research suggests more than 40% of inland waterway drownings were linked with alcohol, according to Fairfax. Of those cases, 70% would have been too drunk to drive, according to the paper, soon to be published in the Accident Analysis and Prevention journal.

Scarr said men were more likely to drink and swim. “They really need to understand the risks of drinking and any kind of waterway,” he said.