Teens tell of British couple’s rescue

MOVING QUICKLY and decisively, 14-yearold Emma Basserman and 13-year-old Zoe Ireland-Meklensek saved a British couple from drowning just off Barbados Beach Club on Maxwell Coast Road, Christ Church, last Wednesday.

The two young swimmers from Montreal, Canada, were paddle boarding on the beach when they heard a woman in the water crying out for help. She told them her husband was too far out to sea and could not swim back to shore.

Helping the woman onto her paddle board, Ireland-Meklensek first brought her back to shore, pulling her by the board’s strap. She then returned for the husband, with Basserman venturing deeper into the water, placing him on the boogie board and similarly pulling him back to shore.

“I went back out with Emma and I got the husband on the boogie board. I went along the beach until the current wasn’t so bad and then I went closer and closer to shore until he could touch the sand.

“When I went to get him, he was struggling to breathe and I could tell that he was stressed, so I tried to stay as calm as I could. We tried to stay as calm as we could while we got to him but they were so grateful and we’re so grateful because we can’t imagine what would have happened,” Ireland-Meklensek said.

Basserman is a competitive swimmer with Montreal’s Dorval Swim Club. The club and its 14 other members are in Barbados for a tenday training camp in preparation for Olympic trials in May. Head coach Chuck Meklensek is the father of Ireland-Meklensek.

A competitive swimmer since the age of eight, Basserman called on all her knowledge of the sea to help the drowning man.

“I used what I knew about strong currents and I made sure to stay parallel to the shore before swimming in, and it was really just instincts. It was a little bit of trouble because the waves were coming in a little bit diagonally so he was being pushed down [by] the beach as we were trying to swim,” she recalled.

While saving two lives was not part of Olympic trials training, head coach Meklensek was proud at the bravery and selflessness of the two girls.

“It’s pretty amazing that they did this. We’re all very proud – I’m proud as a coach, I’m proud as a dad and just proud of the girls for doing this,” he said, adding the news made waves across news networks in Canada.

The two girls have had several interviews on the details of that day. For Ireland-Meklensek, she hopes that their story brings more awareness to safe swimming practices and how to stay safe in perilous situations.

As Basserman continues her preparation for the Olympic trials, the experience has reaffirmed for her the importance of learning how to swim, though she hopes to never encounter such a situation again.

(JRN)

(second left) and Zoe Ireland-Meklensek (second right) with head coach of Dorval Swim Club Chuck Meklensek, Mehki Clarke of Seawater Swimmers and president of the Young Democrats Tyra

Trotman. (Picture by Josué Ramiréz Nelson.)