2015 Revisited

Third Book in the series A Timeless Adventure by Ross W Fewtrell Chapter 1

Now that he was 15 years old he insisted people stop calling him Tommy. His name had to be either Tom or even Thomas if you wanted to be formal. It was 1972 and he had grown his hair long and spent most Saturdays at Rainbow Beach where he was training to be a Surf Life Saver.

This Saturday was no different. He and Alex his best mate from school had gotten a ride to the beach with Noel Webster, the captain of the club. The plan was that Noel would drop them back home that afternoon at about six.  Tom had an arrangement with his sister, Fran, to do the milking on Saturdays. This arrangement cost him dearly, he had to do all of the morning milkings and four of the evening milkings.

The day at the SLSC consisted of lessons on first aid and CPR.  There were practice rescues using the reel, line and belt.  Sometimes they would use the surf skis. Today after lunch they got their first go in the surfboat.

One of the senior members, Ron Irvine was on the sweep. He steered the boat on to a wave and gave the order to trail off.  All the rowers were supposed to move to the back of the boat to keep the nose up. But because most of the crew were nippers on their first outing in a surfboat this didn’t quite go to plan.  As they were moving back, somehow too many boys ended up on one side of the boat. It skewed onto the side of the wave and then rolled over. Poor Ron was flung up into the air by the sweep oar. He came down with a crack as his head hit the stern of the boat.

Once the wave had past and the nippers surfaced there was a mad scramble for oars. The boat was already washed up on the beach. Tom looked around and noticed all the nippers seemed to be ok. Each had an oar and was heading for the shore. Then Tom saw Ron floating face down in the water.  Dragging his oar behind him, he swam sidestroke to Ron.

When he got there he noticed blood around Ron’s head. He held his oar as the next wave washed passed them and then grabbed Ron by the hair and pulled his face from the water. He gave two quick breaths “Mouth to Mouth” and pushed the oar under Ron’s chin. He put his hand up to signal to the other club members on patrol on the beach.  Then he started the long swim to shore dragging Ron. By the time he got to where the waves were breaking he was met by Noel in the belt towing the line.

Noel took Ron from behind and with his hand under his jaw waved with the other and the line was reeled in.  As they started to move a wave broke over them but Noel’s grip never faltered. After that the crew on the reel pulled him fast enough to beat any other waves.

When Tom made it back to the beach the other members were doing the CPR routine on Ron.  An ambulance had been called from Gympie. It took about 50 minutes to get to Rainbow Beach.  By that stage Ron was sitting under a beach umbrella looking very pale and unwell. But he was alive and conscious.

The ambulance men insisted on taking him to hospital and Noel as club captain insisted on going with him. This act of selflessness on the part of the club captain meant that Tom and Alex had no way of getting home.

Alex was stoked by this and said, “Don’t fret, Tommy. We can stay the night in the clubhouse. I am sure my parents won’t mind. I’ll just give them a call.”

“Don’t call me Tommy, Alex. You don’t understand I can’t go to sleep here.”