Epidemic: Surfer saves another life!

Come meet Rob Bain, new hero and erstwhile poet!

This 2016 is shaping up to be the Year of the Surfer Lifesaver! It started with Andre Botha saving Evan Geiselman. Then didn’t Kelly Slater save a family? Jamie O saved a bodyboarder and I know I’m forgetting a few and now we have Rob Bain!

Rob who? I had to Google too and thank God for Matt Warshaw. He says, in his Encyclopedia of Surfing masterpiece:

Droll but friendly Australian goofyfooter from Queenscliff, New South Wales; world-ranked #5 in 1990. Bain was born (1962) in Sydney, began surfing at age 10, then all but quit at 13, not long after his father died. He left home at 16, worked a series of laborer jobs, then picked up surfing again in his late teens.

Bain finished third in the 1984 Australian National Titles, turned pro, and steadily worked his way up the ratings, finishing in the top 10 from 1988 to 1991, winning four world-class events in his career, then retired from the international tour. He continued to enter lower-level competitions midway through the 1995 season.

Bain’s wide-stanced, lateral-driving surf style was more functional than graceful, but he earned a reputation as one of the world’s best in bigger, hollower waves. His dry wit made him a favorite with the surf media as well as his peers. “There’s the druggies, the beer guys and the yuppies,” Bain explained in a 1988 profile. “Suppose I’m a bit of each.” In June 1993, Bain made a $500 bet with a friend that he could stop drinking for the rest of the year; on New Year’s Eve he bought a keg with his winnings, and described the first swallow as feeling like “a thousand angels crying on my tongue.”

Droll but friendly! A thousand angels crying on my tongue! Genius.

In any case, now that we are acquainted with dear Rob, he saved the life of a woman caught in a rip at suburban Sydney’s Whale Beach. The Daily Mail reports:

A lazy afternoon swim turned into a rescue mission for former pro surfer Rob Bain on Sunday when he spotted a young woman caught in a rip, struggling to keep her head above water.

The woman was swimming on Whale Beach when she got sucked into a rip and began to have trouble breathing, Mr Bain told Daily Mail Australia.

Before lifesavers could react, Mr Bain began running toward the water and grabbed his surfboard.

‘I went as quickly as I could to get her – I got to her first and got her onto my board and swam her to the side and out of the rip.’

The woman was ‘really scared’ when Mr Bain reached her and told him after that she thought she was going to die, he said.

‘I felt really sorry for her – it’s a horrible feeling,’ Mr Bain said.

As Mr Bain placed the woman on his surfboard, lifesavers were pictured trying to get past the roughly one metre swell unsuccessfully.

A female lifesaver was able to paddle out to Mr Bain and the young woman after a young male lifesaver was flipped over by a wave.

‘It can happen really quickly – it’s interesting to see how quickly someone can go from relatively ok to a real state of distress,’ Mr Bain said.

A hero and a poet!

But how to wake up this morning as the “young male lifesaver flipped over by a wave?” He was also in the article’s headline:

Now THAT’S how to use a board! Former surfing champ Rob Bain, 53, casually paddles to the rescue of a young woman caught in a rip… as a volunteer lifeguard struggles in a one metre swell

Do you think he will reflect on his career choices and maybe find a volunteer office job?