Sadly, many of our best ideas come only after a tragedy.
Now, an idea sparked by the death of Ben Gerring, has the potential to save the lives of many others.
Ben died in a shark attack at Falcon in 2016, and like any grieving family member, his brother Rick has scrutinised the final moment’s of Ben’s life.
He discovered that precious minutes went by as rescuers tried to locate Ben.
With support of family, friends and the City of Mandurah, Ben has helped develop a simple emergency beach numbering system to help authorities locate the scene of emergencies more quickly.
Now the idea looks like going State-wide, in what will become a wonderful legacy to the life of Ben Gerring, and a testament to the love of his family.
Other local government areas have been invited to adopt the system which will help rescuers find the quickest beach access points to an unfolding incident and to greatly speed up response time.
The new system will be applied in a range of beach emergencies, not just the one that claimed Ben’s life.
In the final weeks leading up to Christmas and the summer holidays, the issue of beach safety is in the news and on everyone’s minds.
Nationally, there has already been a high number of drownings involving people being caught in rips.
Authorities also need to be able to access beaches quickly to launch search and rescue operations not just for swimmers, but for rock fishermen and boats in trouble.
With our vast coastline, it is actually an impossible task to keep everyone safe.
Surf patrols are only present at a tiny fraction of out beaches and too often appeals for people to swim between the flags fall upon deaf ears.
Beach safety is also a big issue with the increasing number of international tourists and temporary residents who don’t understand the nature and power of our beaches.
While almost every Australian child has access to swimming lessons and education about rips and ocean safety, a tourist may only see inviting blue water.
The problems are complex, but complex problems do benefit from simple solutions, as proved by Rick Gerring.
No doubt it won’t be long before we are reporting on lives being saved because of response time improvements made possible by BEN signs.
