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Heroic couple save teenager
But his brother dies in swirling current at Nahoon
By AVUYILE MNGXITAMA,
AN EAST London couple yesterday emerged as heroes after pulling a drowning teenager from the swirling waters of the Nahoon River and resuscitating him.
The teenager’s 15-year-old brother, identified as Inga Mnyamane, from Mdantsane, died during the hour-long drama on Monday afternoon when a fun outing turned into a horror ordeal.
Inga’s 13-year-old brother, Ndihlangule (ironically, it means “save me”), was plucked from the water and resuscitated.
Patrick Gee yesterday told how he and his wife Debbie were taking a casual stroll near the Nahoon River mouth when they stumbled onto the life-and-death situation.
“Because I stay very close to the beach, I was walking with my wife when we heard somebody shouting in the waves,” he told the Daily Dispatch.
“At first, we thought it must be kids having fun, but as we came closer, we could only see their hands waving for help.”
Gee, who was himself the victim of a Great White shark attack 21 years ago, took off his shirt, handed his cellphone to his wife and ran to try to save the two boys.
“There were lots of people looking on, but they did not realise the boys were in trouble and I battled to get through to them.”
Once in the water, “the current and waves around the boys were very strong – the boys were shouting for help”.
“I could see them as I swam towards them, but when I got close, the boys had completely submerged.”
Gee dived underwater in the swirling brown mass and through sheer luck managed to locate one of the boys, Ndihlangule.
“Although the water was dirty, I could see light clothes and when I grabbed it, I found that it was a teenage boy. He was unconscious.”
Gee managed to swim to shore with the teenager.
“I pulled the boy to the beach where my wife was waiting for me and quickly swam back to look for the other boy.”
A woman, believed to be the boys’ mother, started screaming at the sight of the unconscious teenager.
Sadly, Gee found nothing.
“I couldn’t see anything. He was gone.”
Meanwhile, Gee’s wife Debbie, who is a qualified lifesaver, started administering cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to Ndihlangule.
“After I saw he was unconscious, I lifted him upside down and pressed his stomach with my hands. I could see the foam coming out of his mouth and he was extremely heavy.
“After that, the water came out of his mouth and he started to grab my hand firmly and he looked like a person who was still in the water,” Debbie said.
Her husband said although everything happened “very fast”, he was sorry he could not find the other boy.
“If I had been a minute earlier, I would have saved two boys rather than one,” he explained at his Nahoon Mouth home yesterday.
“A day that would have been a beautiful day at the beach turned out to be a day their family will never forget,” Gee said.
Lifeguards later found Inga’s body when it washed up on Nahoon Beach.
Gee yesterday said he believed the tragedy could have been prevented if there were signs posted to warn people of the dangerous areas along Nahoon Beach.
“There were signs saying it was dangerous to swim here, but they were washed away in the floods about two months ago.
“Since then, no signs have been put up,” he said.
Buffalo City Municipality’s acting manager for amenities, Siani Tinley said the warning signs along the beach were in the process of being replaced.
“It is a busy time and most companies are closing, but we hope to install them very soon,” Tinley said.
People should check with lifeguards on duty which areas were safe to swim at and which were not.
“People also needed to swim between the bathing flags and should remain strictly within the designated swimming areas.”
Tinley added that there were four lifeguards allocated to each beach and the number would be increased during Christmas and the New Year.
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