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- A teenager from Makhaza, Khayelitsha, drowned at Muizenberg Beach.
- The 16-year-old boy was with his friends when he got into trouble. The friends asked a surfer to help.
- The surfer, a British man living in Cape Town, rescued another child.
Western Cape police have registered an inquest docket after a boy, 16, drowned at Muizenberg Beach on Saturday morning. A British man living in Cape Town rescued the 16-year-old's friend from the water.
Police spokesperson Warrant Officer Joseph Swartbooi said police responded to a distress call, and when they arrived on the scene, they found medical personnel attending to the 16-year-old.
"The victim was later declared deceased on the scene by the medical personnel," said Swartbooi.
National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) spokesperson Craig Lambinon said the City of Cape Town's water rescue network was activated at 09.38 after a drowning in progress was reported to authorities.
According to Lambinon, the 16-year-old is from Makhaza in Khayelitsha.
His friends alerted a British man living in Cape Town, Archie Moberly, and asked him to help the two boys, who were further out in the surf line. Moberly, a surfer, had reached the shallows after catching a wave.
"Moberly paddled towards them, and they called him to help them; they were separated in the surf zone. He was able to rescue a child, believed to be aged 12 or 13, onto his longboard, and that child indicated to him where his teenage friend could be seen in distress in the surf zone," Lambinon said.
"Moberly then left the child safe on his longboard and swam towards the teenager, who disappeared underwater before he could reach him."
He said Moberly searched for the teenager, but after finding no further sign of him, retreated to the beach with the rescued child.
When the authorities arrived on the scene, they launched an air, sea and shoreline search for the missing boy.
"The teenager was spotted submerged under water, in the surf zone, by the EMS/AMS Skymed rescue helicopter. A Lifesaving South Africa (LSA) rescue swimmer was deployed from the Skymed rescue helicopter into the surf zone, where the LSA rescue swimmer reached and recovered the teenager from underwater. He was joined on the scene, in the surf line, by City of Cape Town lifeguards using Malibu rescue boards," Lambinon said.
They brought the teenager to the shore, where EMS paramedics, a retired paramedic, a student paramedic and lifeguards administered CPR.
Additional EMS paramedics and NSRI medics joined them but their extensive CPR efforts were futile and the boy was declared dead.
"The body of the deceased teenager was taken into the care of Police and Government Health Forensic Pathology Services," Lambinon said.
He called Moberly a Good Samaritan and commended him saving the life of the other child, who was not injured.
Lambinon appealed on behalf of the NSRI, lifeguards, Police, Municipal Beach Authorities and the emergency services to coastal bathers around the entire coastline to only swim where and when lifeguards are on duty, and in between the safer demarcated swimming zones that lifeguards post using their red and yellow flags.
Muizenberg police appeal to anyone with information to call Crime Stop at 08600 1011.
