Postby alamos_kiter » Mon Dec 22, 2014 9:08 am
JGTR, you don't even know who I am for calling me a dickhead. Don't get your pants all twisted, and fire up your brains before you type.
Rescuing a panicking person in the water is critical, because you are likely to go under with them, as others have mentioned. They do not respond to such things as a spoken word, they are in survival mode and try to climb up the highest point, which is you, the rescuer. You must avoid that. You can't even shake off a panicking drowner off your bar with a kite loop. The victim is in panic mode clinging on with a death grip. Easily able to hold hundreds of kilos in tight lock.
There are a number of procedures to deal with that. First one is, keep the person at distance with a floating device until the panic is gone, before you proceed rescuing him / her. Second, there are a number of reflexes you can trigger using brute force, shouldn't you succeed to keep the victim at distance. Third, when you're climbed on, you dive under the victim in order to come free, which is a bit of a challenge with a kite attached and maybe a pfd. Fourth, if that does not work, wait at close distance until the person passes out and rescue him / her, or else consider activating the rescue chain if that is favorable.
And you have to train that stuff. This is nothing you want to do for the first time in overhead wash with a real panicking drowner on you.
Never ever risk your own life - for the obvious reason you might be dead, and for the altruistic reason that there might be other victims who need your help. You don't want to spoil 10 lives because you are stupidly brave in the first attempt. You might even be a professional life saver doing this on a daily basis.
Remains the question, what to do as a kiter with a panicking person. One would have to try a couple of things to get closer to the answer. The vid clearly points where the dangers lay. From experience I can say that this was the right approach for a NON panicking person. He also gave the girl his board first and brought her in controlled, so this looked good. The rescue of the guy did look very fishy.
As a kiter, you can play to your strength: speed, you've got a kite propelling you, being able to pull lots of weight, and you are doing well in surf. Better than a boat. So if you see panic is kicking in, you have more options: bring some flotation device to the victim fast; tow in a helper; go for a length of rope with a loop, floater, whatever; or other things to be thought out.
Don't play to your weak point, which is the vulnerability of yourself if somebody gets close to your bar.