A DISORIENTATED swimmer struggling in the water about one and a half kilometres off Frankston beach put up a fight when police arrived to rescue him, Friday 11 November.
The 32-year-old Frankston freestyler had other ideas: he was intent on making it to “a concert” in St Kilda – 40km away – and did not take kindly to efforts by Senior Constables Julie Edge and Paul Follett, of Frankston police, to haul him aboard.
Earlier, onlookers at Frankston pier raised the alarm when they saw the fully clothed man climb down into the water and swim off into the distance.
“Pretty soon he was out of sight and it came across our radio as a possible drowning,” Senior Constable Edge said.
With emergency services craft 90 minutes away at Williamstown, too far off to be of any help, the senior constables accepted the generous offer of two local fishermen to ferry them out to the recalcitrant swimmer.
A jet skier keen to assist rode ahead to look out for the man and kept in contact with the police using his mobile phone.
Senior Constable Edge said she told the jet skier to “keep his distance” when he reported back that the swimmer was refusing offers of assistance.
“I didn’t want him getting pulled in, too,” she said.
When police arrived on scene the man was about two kilometres out and not going well; he also rejected their offer of help. She described him as “argumentative”.
“He refused to come aboard; he didn’t want a bar of that,” she said.
“He said he was swimming to St Kilda and that he was fine, but, by his answers, I could see he clearly was not fine and was certainly not going to make it all that way.
“By what he was saying about being ‘nearly there’ [St Kilda] I could tell he was affected by alcohol or drugs and not really with it.”
Senior Constable Edge, a former competitive triathlete, said she “gave the man about 15 seconds to think about it and then jumped in and brought him aboard”.
Back on shore, the man who claimed he was a former competition swimmer was taken by ambulance to Frankston Hospital with a low core temperature and treated for hypothermia.
