More Australians get caught in rips and drown each year than die in bush fires, cyclones, storms and shark attacks combined. Despite this, rips are poorly understood and safety efforts are haphazard and underfunded, writes Ann Jones.

The day I meet Melanie Colling, she brings her beach bag and tells me she's wearing the same bathers she had on the day she almost died.

Two years ago, Colling came within a hair's breadth of becoming one of the 21 people who die in rips on Australian beaches each year. As we walk down to the beach, she puts on her sunglasses, trying hide the tears in her eyes.

It had been an Easter Sunday, a lazy day spent on the couch. She didn't want to go for a swim, but was persuaded by her husband.

We retrace the steps she took on that day, down through the rainforest gully at Bungan Head and out onto the beach.

It bothers me when I look at things like the WA Government responding to five shark fatalities since 2011 and they pour in $20 million, and it’s all about, 'human life is paramount'. Well twice as many people have died in rips in that time in WA and what have they done?

'The first five minutes were fantastic, I had a lovely swim and the water was perfect,' she says.

'Obviously it was Easter, so there were no lifeguards on, because it was the end of the season. I kept following [my husband], but little red flags kept popping up in my head saying "ohh this isn't right, it doesn't feel right".'

It was only after she decided to turn back to the beach that she realised why she was feeling ill at ease. She had been sucked into a rip and was being pulled away from the shore.

Surf Live Saving Australia's figure of 21 people dying in rips every year likely underestimates the actual number of deaths in rips.

For a fatality to be confirmed in a rip currently, the individual must be seen entering the rip and subsequently drowning; many deaths on beaches simply go unobserved, or those observing are unable to identify a rip.

But even taken at face value, 21 deaths a year is still significant.

It is, in fact, more than the average fatalities caused by bushfires, cyclones, storms and shark attacks combined.

'Rips do not get the attention that all those other hazards do—there is definitely a sense of complacency about the rip current hazard in the general public,' says Dr Rob Brander of the University of NSW, AKA Dr Rip.

'One person might drown in a rip, and then a week later another person might drown in another location. But because it doesn’t happen en masse, you don’t hear about it very often.'

'It just gets lost on the background news and the severity of the hazard isn’t appreciated.'

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On top of the deaths, there are many thousands of rescues that occur each year on Australian beaches.

'Studies have shown that 89 per cent of rescues on surf beaches are related to rips. In Eurobodalla Shire on the south coast of NSW, they've been monitoring them the last few years and it's closer to 95 per cent of all rescues. Official rescue stats are kept by Surf Life Saving Australia and council lifeguards and if you add them together it would be anywhere from ten to 15,000 rescues per year. If you add in rescues by surfers that go unreported, it's probably even higher.'

Dr Brander, a coastal geomorphologist, has spent many years studying and measuring rips, and his recent research has taken a turn towards a social science approach: what people know about rips and how to educate them for their own safety.

He believes that ignorance is the problem, not the rips, which are a normal and natural part of the life of a beach.

'All rip currents are potentially avoidable: if you don't get in to a rip current, you're not going drown in one,' says Dr Brander.

And yet, rip education and notification throughout Australian is largely haphazard.

'We've got the flags up, and we’ve got lifeguards and lifesavers, and [they're] largely there because of rips, but so many of our beaches are unpatrolled and even the patrolled ones are seasonal.'

In other countries, says Dr Brander, there are television ads and the signage, critically, has diagrams and photographs.

'We have really poor signage—it’s ad hoc—it might just say "dangerous currents".'

'We do go to schools, there are lots of us that run surf education in schools. But it's not necessarily consistent, it’s not necessarily generic and not all schools get it.'

'We need to get better about communicating rip current knowledge to people.'

'It bothers me when I look at things like the WA Government responding to five shark fatalities since 2011 and they pour in $20 million, and it's all about, "human life is paramount". Well twice as many people have died in rips in that time in WA and what have they done? Nothing, probably.'

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Whatsapp The purple dye indicates where a rip is flowing.

Dr Brander admits it has been nearly impossible to pin down any investment figures into education or warnings, but given the mortality and rescue figures, he firmly believes that more should be done.

According to Dr Brander, an ideal approach to rip safety would include school based education, mandatory screening of a video on incoming international flights, public service announcements on TV and in cinemas as well as more effective signage.

The approach would be multifaceted, in part because recent research into rip behaviour has shown that they are much more complex that had previously been thought, and this in turn brings complexity to the messages that need to be communicated to the public.

'There's an old scientific paradigm that dates back to literally the 1940s that says that rips will flow straight off shore and take you way out to sea,' says Dr Brander.

However, research from Dr Brander and colleagues around the world has found that many rips actually circulate water around the surf zone.

'What we’re finding after doing a lot of experiments on a lot of different types of beaches, is that yeah, some rips go in circles 100 per cent of the time, and if you were to stay afloat you would be happy as Larry. But they don’t always do that.'

'One rip may recirculate and [then] you move 100m down the beach and that rip will spit you out the back about 50 per cent of the time.'

So, some rips flow in circles, some rips flow to the back of the surf zone, and some go at angles along the beach.

On top of this, most rips pulse, when a large push of water doubles the force and speed of the rip, which even on a quiet surf day can go as fast as an Olympic swimmer.

Rivers of the sea Twenty one people die every year in dangerous beach rips on Australian beaches. Listen to Off Track to hear the latest research into rips.

The result is that safety advice to swimmers is complex: if you are circulating, you'll need to float, if you are being carried away from shore you are going to have to try and swim across the rip to the wave zone. Always signal for help. Always swim between the flags.

'There is not one single piece of advice that we can give people that is going to cover every situation when you are stuck in a rip. It's leading towards some sort of combination of advice,' says Dr Brander.

But ultimately the best way to lower the death rate is by not getting into a rip in the first place.

Dr Brander has developed a slogan for the purpose: 'white is nice, green is mean.'

That's because white water is bringing water towards the shore, and the deep channels that take water away from the shore—the rips—are generally calmer in comparison. They often look tranquil and green, but looks are deceiving.

'Rips are definitely more complex than we thought,' says Dr Brander.

It's something that Melanie Colling has come to grips with now, having educated herself on the dangers of rip currents since her near death experience.

'I've never been here in this sea, at this beach, on my own, since the incident. And I do have a fear now that I never had before. And a respect, I think.'

'I feel like I've got a different relationship here now than I did before it happened.'

But she wasn’t going to be intimidated away from swimming forever.

Two years after she almost died in a rip at Bungan Beach, I turn around to see Colling, dressed in the same bathers she wore that day, walking into the water.

She's exorcising the demons.

Find out more at Off Track.

