CHENNAI: Few people are aware that college student, Tarun Murugesh returned to Chennai a few days ago, after bagging two golds and a bronze at the Commonwealth championships held recently at Durban.The event hosted nearly 12 countries across the globe, a team of five representing each nation. “The hope is that by 2020, Lifesaving is included in the list of Olympic sports, that is something I know the International Life Saving Federation is aiming for," says a soft spoken Tarun.It’s been over four years of training and imparting lifesaving techniques and first aid to close to 1,500 people, ranging from students to fishermen to police commandos, all through the Rashtriya Life Saving Society. However, it is unusual to find that Tarun’s real life rescues happened in fact, before he learnt to be a lifeguard. “I was on a vacation in Bali with my mother and there was a Tamil television anchor who was celebrating her birthday at midnight,“ he recalls. Apparently, someone had pushed her in, in good spirits but the pool was so deep that not many people noticed her hands flailing in the air.” Coincidentally, the following day, Tarun made another rescue when the group they were travelling with, went white water rafting.However, when asked about practice schedules before the run-up to the event, the 22-year-old surprises us, “There was no training, we (the Indian team selected) met at Mumbai for two days of practice and that was it.” As this youngster emphasises, more people die from drowning because the person at hand is ignorant to procedures such as Cardio -Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). Although, there are several other international events to train for and more accolades to bring home, Tarun is clear that his future rests with building a team that can train people to save lives. “It isn’t just about being a strong swimmer, there is a lot of expensive equipment that is critical to the training.” He makes a reference to the red buoys made popular by the lifeguards on Baywatch. No doubt, if we had those sculpted bodies on our beaches, victims would be aplenty.
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