A 15-year-old boy who was pulled unconscious from the water at Glenelg has become the sixth person to drown in the past two weeks, four of them children

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A teenager has died after being found unconscious in the water at Glenelg beach in Adelaide, amid a spate of drownings around the country.



The 15-year-old boy, from suburban Goodwood in Adelaide, was pulled from the water near the Glenelg jetty about 4.30pm on Monday. Police and lifeguards performed CPR but he could not be revived.

Police said there were no suspicious circumstances but asked for anyone who saw the teenager in difficulty in the water to come forward.

It’s the second death at the popular seaside location in little more than a week. Nitisha Negi, who had come to Australia from India to play football at the Pacific School Games, went missing off the breakwater at Glenelg on 10 December. Her body was recovered the following morning.

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Negi’s death prompted the local council to impose a temporary ban on swimming at the breakwater and a promise from the state government to make the ban permanent.

In New South Wales, the search for the body of a teenage boy who was lost in rough surf off the mid-north coast resumed on Tuesday. The 14-year-old, named by friends on social media as Bronson Rhodes, was swimming with two friends at Flynns beach on Saturday afternoon when the trio got into difficulty and signalled for help.

Two of the boys were rescued but Bronson was unable to be saved. His body was sighted by emergency services on Saturday but the retrieval operation had to be called off owing to the treacherous surf conditions. The search continued on Sunday and Monday but he has not been seen since.

Two weeks ago an 11-year-old boy drowned after being caught in a rip in rough conditions at the nearby unpatrolled Lighthouse Beach.

Further north on the NSW coast, a 49-year-old British woman died after being pulled from the surf at Coffs Harbour on Sunday evening. And last Wednesday a man in his early 20s died after being pulled unconscious from the surf at Suffolk Park on the north coast.

A man pulled unconscious from the water by lifesavers at Bondi beach remained in a critical but stable condition in St Vincent’s hospital on Monday.

Lifesavers performed CPR on the man, believed to be in his 60s, after he was spotted in distress on Monday afternoon. Initial reports suggest the man may have gone into cardiac arrest in the water, an Ambulance NSW spokeswoman said.

South Australian surf lifesavers called for better beach safety education for migrants and tourists after the Glenelg tragedy.

Authorities needed to do more to educate newly arrived people who might not be familiar with beaches, tides and water conditions, Surf Life Saving SA chief executive Clare Harris said.

“This is the second death we have had in just over a week here at Glenelg which speaks to the need for better education for our migrant communities and international tourists,” Harris said.

She said 19% of coastal deaths in Australia were visitors and a third of all those who had drowned in South Australia over the past 10 years were migrants.

“Clearly what we are doing to prevent this over-representation is inadequate,” Harris said.

Surf Life Saving SA said more funding was needed for programs, including a multi-language awareness campaign.

“Unfortunately, with current resourcing, these programs reach less than 4% of the target groups,” Harris said.