An incredible rescue incident was captured by Evangelos Papaioannou, who happened to be in the right place at the right time while doing SUP at the tip of Epanomi in Thessaloniki, where he rescued a father and his two children from drowning. Last Sunday afternoon, two children, aged 13 and 15, were swept away by the strong sea currents of the area and dangerously carried away from the shore. Their father, of Romanian origin, tried to reach them by swimming, but soon became exhausted and found himself in a state of panic and semi-unconscious in the sea.
Mr. Papaioannou, a winter swimmer familiar with the area, spotted the children calling for help. When he approached them with his SUP board, they asked him to help their father first. He immediately began searching for him and found him struggling to stay on the surface of the sea, exhausted and in a difficult condition.
“He couldn’t stay afloat. He was coughing, vomiting water, had no strength,” Mr. Papaioannou described to the Voria.gr website. “I held his hands and helped him grab onto the board. We talked to calm him down and slowly managed to return to shore.”
Thessaloniki: The touching moment of rescue
The touching moment of the family’s reunion on shore was captured on video, with the children hugging their father and thanking their rescuer. Knowing the area well, as he engages in water sports and is a winter swimmer, Mr. Papaioannou realized the children were swimming against the current in an attempt to get back to the point where they had entered the sea. “I told them they were swimming in the wrong direction and that they needed to swim from the opposite direction to be helped and let the waves carry them out naturally. I couldn’t pull two people with the board, and when I told them I would stay beside them to get to shore together, they said ‘leave us, go help our father.'”
After the children assured him they had the strength to reach shore on their own, he attempted to find their father. “I immediately looked around, at first I didn’t see him. I stood up on the board and that’s when I saw him for two or three seconds, because he was alternately sinking and surfacing,” continues Mr. Papaioannou, emphasizing that the area had considerable wind and waves. “He was in a semi-conscious state, panicking, in shock. He couldn’t breathe. As soon as he saw me, he lifted up a bit, grabbed onto the board but couldn’t hold on well, he was slipping, coughing, vomiting water. I held his hands for a while so he could hold onto the board, because he had no strength, the man was completely exhausted. We stayed for about five minutes, talked a bit to calm him down and then he started breathing. After he recovered and felt ready, I told him how to hold onto the board and slowly we got out.”
“My group and I were ready to leave. I had already taken a ride with the SUP and at the last minute decided to get the camera from the car and take a second ride to shoot video and send it to a friend. This story happened because I delayed returning to the car by five to ten minutes,” notes Mr. Papaioannou, indicating that his contribution to the family’s rescue was purely a matter of luck and circumstance.
He nevertheless emphasizes the danger at the tip of Epanomi. “The spot is treacherous. There’s a sandbar where people go to play with the waves and the water reaches up to their waist. It’s not dangerous while you’re there, but to the right and left you can’t touch bottom. So if you leave the sandbar or get hit by a small wave and drift from the spot, then you can’t touch bottom and the currents carry you away.” A similar incident had occurred in the area a month and a half ago when two sailing athletes doing kite surfing rescued a tourist and his 10-year-old daughter.
Incidents of people being swept away at Epanomi are increasing
The president of OFKATH-Volunteer Rescuers, Christos Ramos, sounds the alarm about the increased incidents of people being swept away in the sea area of Epanomi. “The last two to three years have seen an increase in rescues we perform. We have someone there who almost every day pulls someone out, whether it’s someone with a boat who didn’t have oars or an engine, or because they were spearfishing and other things, many incidents,” he emphasizes to Voria.gr.
The increase in incidents, according to him, is multifactorial. On one hand, Epanomi has emerged as a popular nearby destination in recent years, resulting in large numbers of residents and tourists flocking there for their daily swims, and on the other hand, the area has dangerous sea currents due to the morphology of the coastline. Additionally, Mr. Ramos notes, the increased engagement in water sports by amateurs plays a decisive role, as well as various games by young children that end up being swept away due to carelessness or some kind of challenge.
“It would be good for everyone to be more careful. To get informed about the weather and the area they’re going to and not do things when they don’t have knowledge,” urges Mr. Ramos.
