Doctor Reacts To Dramatic Lifeguard Rescues Bondi Beach

Cheers Dr Mike! Love watching your stuff - always so interesting and insightful, especially when reflecting on our own rescues! The last two in particular, always get us right in the feelings. Appreciate your analysis mate. 💪

Me, a med student, trying to diagnose parallel to Dr. Mike and being way too happy when I ask myself the same questions or think the same things as him 💪🏼

I absolutely love Bondi Rescue. I think it's worth explaining that these guys only have basic medical training and often give the green whistle to help patients deal with pain until they get to the hospital. The lifeguards never pretend to be doctors and they highly respect their buddies who are paramedics and come to help.

Hey Mike! I worked as a lifeguard and was certified for beach rescue, though I didn't work beaches regularly. To answer your question at 9:00, there is no safer way to bring someone back from the ocean then on the board. While it isn't as fast, we have to be aware that we have absolutely no information about this person and they may have an injury that we can make worse by just swimming or dragging them back. Like you said about the man with the neck injury, we need to make the situation stable to understand the problem and the board is about as stable as we can make it, especially since we can begin CPR while still on the board. Edit: Think you to those who read this, including Bondi Rescue themselves for the informative comment on why we use boards and not jet skis or boats. To those wondering how you do CPR on a board, we are trained to immediately start giving breaths as Dr. Mike talked about in this video. More often than not, we do not do compressions until out of the water, but in some situations where we have grabbed someone in deep water and are waiting for a boat or another reason we aren't able to get back to shore, we need to keep in mind how much time we have to help someone and that sometimes means performing chest compressions on the board which is extremely difficult. Thank you for reading and I hope you all have a wonderful and safe day.

Aussie here! They give the green whistle BECAUSE it only lasts a few minutes and they need to transport the person across sand which is not only uneven and painful but can take some time to cross, even by vehicle. It will be well out of his system by the time he gets to hospital, lessening considerably by the time he's with the paramedics.

A while back, my husband had a seizure. He fell, turned blue, and I was scared and crying. I remembered Doctor Mike’s reaction videos and knew I had to turn him on his side. Doctor Mike, I’ll be forever grateful for all the videos you put up. You’ve been a direct reason my husband is still alive. Thank you.

When they said it was the episode with the man and the woman from the same family, my heart sank. One of the saddest episodes. Bondi is such a great show, but it can be heartbreaking. A real emotional roller coaster.

As a dad of a 3-year-old, hearing that infant cry brought me to happy, relieved tears!

The baby one hits even harder when you know Harries lost his son as a baby, so these cases for him hit different. And the last case makes me sob uncontrollably every time it comes up, how awful to be stuck between your sister and her husband, possibly losing both of them. How awful losing your husband on a vacation trip just out of nowhere. These cases are hard.

For anybody wondering about the Bondi Beach guy, so what happened is that he went to the beach to exercise with his friends. He was a dancer so he needed to stay in shape. Once they were done, they went towards water to cool off. He indeed dove into the water like they said and he slammed his head in the sand. Did not backflip or anything like that. And obviously he did not recover from that accident and he's currently quadriplegic.

I once saved my little brother doing chest compressions chest compressions chest compressions. I pulled him out of the pool unconscious and started doing cpr. Paramedics did come and he, thank God, is alive and healthy

It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen the segment with the drowned husband and wife, every single time I see it I get so emotional and feel for the family and my heart totally breaks for the lifeguards and paramedics who dealt with them, one of the saddest moments in the history of the show! In fact if I’m remembering correctly they all had a debriefing session after that experience and actually got a second defibrillator because of it and ran through some logistics to see how they could improve things in the future because it effected all of their emotional health’s very deeply. Lifeguarding is definitely not for the faint of heart!

Doctor Mike, as a paramedic in the field, I can say many times its not our fault when we arrive at a scene late. We would also love to be omnipresent. It increases survival rate of casualties. We are trained and strategically placed to get there in less than 10 minutes from the time of call. Problem is, a lot of people initiate emergency calls after a long time has passed. Whether due to panic or not knowing what to do. We might control our base radius but we cant control what happens before the call reaches us.

Having met these legends on my many trips down to Bondi, they truly work so hard. Here’s a free tip - SWIM BETWEEN THE FLAGS! So frustrating to see many tourists ignore this and put these guys at risk too. They have families too!!

As a former lifeguard on a lake, there are jetskis available. However, on the ocean, timing the swells is incredibly difficult in places like this. It can be more hazardous to have a jetski than just a body board.

The Bondi lifeguards do an amazing job. It’s impossible to stress just how busy that beach gets in the height of summer. We’re talking stadiums full of people in a small area!

As a crime scene/medical photographer for 18yrs I’ve witnessed first responders/doctors do amazing things, split second decisions. It’s amazing to witness.

on your question about getting people back to shore quicker, they do have jetskis that they will use on occasion, but it's my understanding that the rescue boards are the best tool they have when it comes to balancing speed, manoeuvrability, and safety to other swimmers - during peak times at bondi they can have basically the entire shoreline filled with people, where it's just not safe to ride a jetski in the waters. i'm sure there are other factors they have to take into account like operating costs, available manpower etc.

I would love to see Dr Mike react to a show called 24 hours in A&E, basically they film an A&E department (emergency room in the states) for 24 hours and you get to see all the different things the hospital deals with in a day and how they respond. It's great you het to see all sorts of things from broken bones, car accidents, heart attacks to things as minimal as people getting Q tips stuck in their ear. They also interview doctors, nurses, family members and patients. It really makes people appreciate the NHS and especially the emergency teams.

0:10 - Blocked intestine 2:50 - Spinal cord injury 5:00 - Baby near death 7:30 - Drowning 12:10 - Conclusion