Gold Coast: Man dies, two sent to hospital in mass drowning

A young man is dead and two of his mates are in hospital after they got into trouble in rough surf on an unpatrolled beach on the Gold Coast.

Two of the men, all aged in their 20s, made it back to the beach, but lifeguards pulled the third man out of the water at the north end of The Spit on Main Beach about 4pm today.

Gold Coast Council head lifeguard Chris Maynard said the men were in “isolated” waters about a kilometre away from the nearest flagged area.

“The males got in the water in rough conditions with no lifeguards patrolling and got into difficulty,” he said.

“Two of them managed to get back to shore somehow but one has unfortunately passed away.”

Lifeguards noticed the incident occurring through binoculars when a member of the public ran up the beach to alert them to the drowning.

Two lifeguards drove up the beach with one going “straight out to sea” when they reached the scene on a rescue board.

He found the man face down in the water before taking him back to the beach where they performed CPR for at least 10 minutes before paramedics arrived.

Paramedics found the man in a critical condition.

They performed CPR for another 20 minutes but he could not be revived.

The two other men were taken to Gold Coast University Hospital for further checks.

Mr Maynard said the conditions on Gold Coast beaches are rough at the moment, with a strong easterly swell causing strong rips and currents close to shore.

“The swell is really dicey and dangerous if you’re entering the water,” he said.

“It’s actually a tragedy, the way the conditions are with these rips you can be taken out to sea quite quickly.”

It was the second drowning tragedy in 24 hours.

On Wednesday, a man drowned while trying to save his 11-year-old daughter from the surf at Seven Mile Beach at Lennox Beach on the south coast of NSW.

He was the third father to drown while saving a child in NSW this year.

So far this summer, there have been 41 drowning deaths reported across Australia, according to Royal Life Saving Australia.

Over three-quarters (78 per cent) of those drowning victims were male and nearly half (44 per cent) occurred on coastal waterways.

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