Dubai Life Saving

On his way home from attending the 2004 Lifesaving World Championships in Viareggio – Italy, Alan Whelpton AM, the ILS President, visited Dubai. He took this opportunity to visit Wild Wadi, a huge water resort park which is in close proximity to the only seven Star Hotel in the World called Burg Al-Arab (the Arabic Tower) and also close to the other 3 huge Hotels that have been built on Jeremiah Beach.


On his way home from attending the 2004 Lifesaving World Championships in Viareggio – Italy, Alan Whelpton AM, the ILS President, visited Dubai. He took this opportunity to visit Wild Wadi, a huge water resort park which is in close proximity to the only seven Star Hotel in the World called Burg Al-Arab (the Arabic Tower) and also close to the other 3 huge Hotels that have been built on Jeremiah Beach.

The ILS President was most impressed by the excellent pool lifeguards that were patrolling the water park, all dressed in life guard uniforms with torpedo buoys over their shoulder, and very attentive to the huge crowd in attendance. He requested to meet the Life Guard in charge and was delighted to be met by Haydn Holmes, a former National team member of the South African Team in New Zealand at Rescue 1998 and a past South African Lifesaving Champion.

Haydn took him on a tour of the facilities which includes patrolling 4 major beach hotels, numerous hotel pools and lagoons and a strip of surfing beach approximately 2 kilometres long.

The service was established some 5 years ago by American Life Guards Glenn Davidson and Chris Perry and is a combination of the American system of Patrol towers and life guards placed in critical areas. They employ over 600 well trained life guards both male and female and these include many nationalities from South Africa, USA, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia as well as local life guards.

There is public beaches further up the strip which do not have the red and yellow flags flying and are not patrolled. The ILS President suggested to Haydn that here is his challenge to improve Dubai water safety for the public as he stated a number of people had drowned on these unpatrolled beaches each year. The ILS President has followed up with correspondence to both Glenn Davidson and Chris Perry so maybe something can be done for the local swimming public.

The ILS President is very pleased he has visited Dubai. An excellent life saving service organised by highly trained and conscientious senior life guards, well funded by Dubai hotel and resort authorities and a credit to the 600 life guards happily patrolling these facilities.

Maybe our next full member of ILS.