Nippers (8 year old lifesaver trainees) hailed for daring surf rescue

[depakid]

Source: ABC


To the rescue: Spencer Jeams (left) and Jake Satherley rescued a drowning man from the front of Northcliffe.
-----------

A pair of eight-year-olds have been hailed as heroes after using their nippers training to rescue a man from the surf at a south-east Queensland beach. Jake Satherley and his nipper friend Spencer Jeams noticed the middle-aged man struggling in a rip off the Gold Coast's Northcliffe beach yesterday.

The pint-sized pair, who both live on the Gold Coast, together pulled the man, who was swimming outside of the flags, onto their board. "They just went into action until the lifesaver realised what was happening," Jake's mum, Aleena, told ABC Local Radio. Jake says as soon as they realised the man was in trouble, they leapt into action. "We saw him put his hand up and saying 'help, help' so we went over to him and pulled him on our board," he said.

Northcliffe Life Saving Club president David Shields says he has never seen a rescue like it. "I've been involved in surf lifesaving for 30 years and I've never seen anyone so young come to the aid of someone so old," he told News Online. "For boys so young to act the way they did, we're just so proud of them and they will be rewarded."

Jake, who turns nine next week, says he did not feel scared despite yesterday's dangerous surf conditions which saw seven people taken to hospital and 42 rescued in south-east Queensland alone. "It took a couple of minutes," he said.

Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/11/2789494.htm

[EFerrari]

1. That's simply amazing.

:wow:

[undeterred]

2. Cutest heroes ever.

[winyanstaz]

3. I am glad everyone survived ok....

These young men are heros :)...

[katkat]

4. what were 8 year olds doing in "dangerous surf conditions"?

"Jake's mother was sitting on the beach at the time, unaware of the drama unfolding in the water." Good way to get your kids drowned, Mom.

[Divine Discontent]

5. sadly, that's true! sheesh. Even though they're skilled for their age, allowing them in dangerous

conditions seems very risky. Good for that man, however, he was at the right place at the right time. They are heroes.

[depakid]

14. Skills, confidence and courage tend to be developed early on

with the help of communities whose members support clubs (and programs) like these:

http://slsa.com.au/default.aspx?s=nippers

Anyone's communities can have things like this- and we all have kids who- with half a chance- can and will do amazing things.

Quite on their own.

[Violet_Crumble]

8. If they were between the flags, they were fine... n/t

[rasputin1952]

6. Good deal! The kids did a great job...

One of those times when we can all jump up and say..."Everybody Lives!"

Nice to know these kids saw what was happening and just did the right thing...I am duly impressed...:)

[Prometheus Bound]

7. 7 hospitalized and 42 rescued? Dumb people. Busy lifeguards.

Great kids!

[undergroundnomore]

9. I'm glad

to hear that no one was hurt. This could have turned out so differently.

[zoff]

10. Good job lil mates!

Thank god everyone came out safe as events could have easily gone the other way.

[Lint Head]

11. Great story. I see interviews and more in their future.

Rip currents are dangerous but easy to escape if you know the method.
The problem is panic. When one panics the reaction is to swim into the current toward the beach as the current drags them you out to sea. If you swim horizontal to the shoreline you will break the rip tides pulling force. Problem is you are being quickly pulled away have to think to swim sideways.
Fear and panic have killed many folks. I learned this the hard way during two drowning incidents in my youth.

[wordpix]

12. awwww---Baywatch crew, eat your heart out

[Vidar]

13. K&R.

[Rage for Order]

15. "Nippers" sounds awfully close to a racial slur

They should think about coining a term for them that won't be misconstrued as being racist. Is "nippers" really necessary?

:shrug:

[formercia]

16. Pommie Nippers, then.

Don't be an ass.

[Rage for Order]

17. Who's being an ass?

It's not like there aren't historical parallels

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_%22niggardly%22#David_Howard_incident

"Niggardly" (noun: "niggard") is an adjective meaning "stingy" or "miserly", perhaps related to the Old Norse verb nigla = "to fuss about small matters". It is cognate with "niggling", meaning "petty" or "unimportant", as in "the niggling details".

On January 15, 1999, David Howard, a white aide to Anthony A. Williams, the black mayor of Washington, D.C., used the word in reference to a budget. This apparently upset one of his black colleagues (identified by Howard as Marshall Brown), who interpreted it as a racial slur and lodged a complaint. As a result, on January 25 Howard tendered his resignation, and Williams accepted it.

Shortly after the Washington incident, another controversy erupted over the use of the word at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. At a February meeting of the Faculty Senate, a junior English major and vice chairwoman of the Black Student Union told the group how a professor teaching Chaucer had used the word niggardly. The student later said she was unaware of the related Washington, D.C. controversy that came to light just the week before. She said the professor continued to use the word even after she told him that she was offended. "I was in tears, shaking," she told the faculty. "It's not up to the rest of the class to decide whether my feelings are valid."

In late January or early February 2002, a white fourth-grade teacher in Wilmington, North Carolina was formally reprimanded for teaching the word and told to attend sensitivity training. The teacher, Stephanie Bell, said she used "niggardly" during a discussion about literary characters. Parent Akwana Walker, who is black, protested the use of the word, saying it offended her because it sounds similar to a racial slur.

Dennis Boaz, a history teacher, sued the administrators of the Mendocino County Office of Education for defamation. Mr. Boaz, who was bargaining for Ukiah schoolteachers, wrote a letter saying that the "tenor of the negotiation tactics of the district office has become increasingly negative and niggardly." The response was a memo from one defendant of the lawsuit that implied that Boaz was racist, and a letter co-signed by the other defendant and nine other individuals in the Mendocino County school system stating that Boaz's comments were "racially charged and show a complete lack of respect and integrity toward Dr. Nash, Ukiah Unified District Superintendent," who is black.

At some point before the Washington, D.C., incident (of early 1999), The Dallas Morning News had banned the use of the word after its use in a restaurant review had raised complaints.


Why not use a word that's less likely to generate hurt feelings, even if it's a misunderstanding?

:shrug:

[formercia]

18. Nippers, as in 'Rug Rats', 'Ankle Biters', etc.

It's just slang for a child.

[depakid]

21. I thought the name came from ankle biters, too- but the etymology is actually much more interesting

Contrary to the assumptions of landlubbers, the capstan of a sailing ship did not have the anchor cable wound around it. The capstan had a spliced loop of cable running from it to a point further aft in the ship, and then back again. When the capstan was turned, this fixed cable circled around and around. The incoming anchor cable was tied, or ‘nipped’, to this closed loop.

While the grown men on board turned the capstan, the ship's boys nipped the two cables together, tying them with a short piece of line at the incoming end, walking along, untying the lines at the other end, and running back to nip the cables again. These boys were called, naturally enough, nippers.

The Australian language developed in the age of sail, when every new arrival had to come by sea, spending three months or more on board ship, and acquiring nautical expressions all the while. Most Australians today are unaware of this nautical heritage, and would be quite taken aback if they realised just how many seafaring terms we use, by and large.

(A ship with its bows pointing into the wind is taken aback, one running before the breeze is sailing by and large.)

A nipper is another sailors' term. Literally, a nipper is a young person, strictly a boy trainee, though the term is also taken just to mean ‘children’. This last, more general, sense is used almost exclusively by Australian men, as in ‘the wife and nippers’. That former bastion of male chauvinism, the Surf Life Saving Association (SLSA) now welcomes women into its ranks at all levels (there are even all-female boat crews, as you can see), but some of the old terminology remains. Thanks to the SLSA, we have a third meaning of the term, a cross between the other two. Capitalised Nippers are young trainee Life Savers.

Life Savers are adult volunteers who patrol our surf beaches. They wear funny little skull caps of yellow and orange, and they require surfers to swim between the orange and yellow flags that mark the safest part of the beach. They rescue those who get into difficulties, and they provide first aid for those who are hurt or stung by bluebottles or other unpleasant sea creatures. Most of the younger ones started as Nippers.

Much more: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~[e-mail]/nippers.htm

[formercia]

20. Australian definition of 'Nipper.'

Juniors ‘Nippers’ in surf life saving

In response to declining membership lists and deteriorating club life in the mid and late 1960’s, many clubs launched recruitment campaigns aimed at a new category of member, pre-adolescents known as ‘nippers’.


http://www.slsa.asn.au/default.aspx?s=_nippers#JNI

So, chill. You're confused.

[Posteritatis]

22. Because those people are wrong and their ignorance shouldn't be accomodated. (nt)

[flvegan]

19. Common Aussie terminology.

[anakie]

23. confusing your 'P's with your 'G's comrade

n/t