Keynsham
  Lifesaving Club

On Saturday 24th Nov, Rebecca Mason and David Fielding from Keynsham Lifesaving club entered the Bath University Lifesaving Competition. Our intrepid duo was joined by two lifesavers from Southampton University to make up a team of four. This was Rebecca’s first competition, and our team was up against strong competition from 26 of the best university lifesaving teams in the country. Undeterred, we registered at the reception desk and sat down in isolation to await the first event – the land-based incident.

After a short wait, the incident was set and we were called forward to tackle the scenario: an armed bank robbery! We were told to enter the incident on our hands and knees and warned that if we stood up or made too much noise the robbers would come back and "shoot" us! These constraints made the incident very challenging – we were trying to treat multiple casualties (Including a panic-attack, a gunshot wound and a casualty who had stopped breathing) whilst ensuring our own safety. 90 seconds flew by, and before we knew it the incident was over.

There was no time to reflect on how things had gone before we were whisked away to tackle the pool-based incident: a canoeing lesson that had gone wrong. We fared well in the wet incident, with Rebecca speedily rescuing an unconscious casualty and picking up lots of points by performing excellent CPR. The team worked together well and we scored lots of points for our excellent communication and captaincy.

Once all the teams had tackled the incident, we moved on to the races. The diving block and high freeboard made the rope-throw particularly challenging, but despite these difficulties we managed to rescue two casualties and would have rescued a third if the whistle hadn’t blown. Lots of teams picked up time penalties for pulling on the back-line, but I’m pleased to say that our rope-throw was clean and we finished 6^th in this event!

The swim and tow went well, but we were no match for the older, more experienced swimmers from the university teams. Having said that, we still managed to beat 7 teams in the Manikin relay event.

When the overall results were announced we did better than any of us expected - finishing 19th overall out of 26 teams. Well done KLSC!