Warrnambool surfer Garry Druitt was found face-down, unconscious, in the surf. Luckily for him, he was surrounded by exactly the right people to rescue him, revive him, and save his life.

Fit as a fiddle, Garry was out the back at Flume, in Warrnambool, the Friday before last when he suffered a heart attack.

His son Ben Druitt can't believe his dad - a life-long surfer - is now alive, sitting up in hospital with his brain apparently in good working order.

"I would say mentally he's just about 100 per cent back," Ben said. "Physically, he is still tired."

Warrnambool surfer Garry Druitt survived an ocean heart attack thanks to his civilian rescuers (Ben Druitt)

When he first got the call about his dad, Ben was surfing at Port Fairy, half an hour away. "My partner paddled out and waved me over and told me that Garry had had a heart attack and was being flown to Melbourne," he said.

He was greeted on shore by police, then jumped straight in his car and drove to the hospital four hours away.

"When we got there we found Garry unconscious in A and E," he said. "Doctors didn't know how long he was without oxygen and whether he'd ever wake up again." 

Ben describes his father's rescue as an "incredible story", saying it ended happily because of the skilled people — including a fireman and two nurses — who happened to be nearby.

"What could have happened and what did happen were worlds apart," he said.

Some of Garry's rescuers piece together the events of the day (ABC South West Victoria: Emily Bissland)

"[The rescuers] worked on him pretty much straight away and kept him alive in time for the paramedics to do their thing when they arrived."

In the cast of rescuers who played a role in saving Garry Druitt's life, his son Ben said the first were Warrnambool fireman Hugh Mahoney, 15-year-old Flynn Dowie and locals Erin Ballinger and Pip Pascoe, who were all surfing nearby.

The rescue

It was an unusually hot Friday morning, and the first decent day of surf for months. Both Hugh Mahoney and Flynn Dowie noticed Garry Druitt roll off his board into the water, but they each assumed he was just taking a dip, keeping cool while waiting for a wave. 

About twenty seconds later, Hugh glanced across to see Garry convulsing, and hollered out to the other surfers. Quick-thinking Erin Ballinger paddled straight in to shore to raise the alarm on dry land, beginning the hunt for a phone to call triple zero, while Hugh paddled over to Garry's floating body and began administering rescue breaths.

Ben Druitt knows how hard it is to manoeuvre an unconscious man in the ocean, and believes those quick breaths were life-saving.

"A body becomes quite unwieldy, especially when they've taken on water," Ben said. "But those initial rescue breaths and the quick CPR is what helped him survive...and without any brain damage or long-lasting effects, hopefully."

Off-duty fireman Hugh Mahoney applied the defibrillator in an ocean rescue at Warrnambool's main beach (ABC South West Victoria: Emily Bissland)

Garry is known for his tendency to surf alone at isolated breaks, but on this particular morning, his decision to surf a local wave at a busy beach was life-saving.

"I witnessed Garry having a cardiac arrest, that's when I notified Flynn and Pip, and together ... we helped get him back into shore," Hugh Mahoney said. 

Hugh is used to being a first responder; with the Warrnambool Fire Brigade he has trained to stay calm in emergency scenarios, and has performed many resuscitations on the job. He also knows how to operate a defibrillator (which would come in handy very soon).

But despite that, he said this rescue was very challenging. "Normally when you're at work you have all the information in front of you when going to a job...so you can formulate a bit of a game plan in your head," he said.

"Whereas this one was totally different, it happened directly in front of us, so we were all thinking on our feet."

Young and brave

For Warrnambool College student Flynn Dowie, the experience of rescuing an unresponsive grown man was difficult and scary. But in the rush of adrenaline, the young man pushed aside his own distress and did what he needed to save a life.

"My adrenaline was just really high, I was just doing what I thought to do," Flynn said. "I thought 'no way he's going to be able to make this', he was unconscious for so long.

The youngest of the rescuers, Flynn Dowie, is fifteen (ABC South West Victoria: Emily Bissland)

"When I heard that he was alive, I was so happy, so surprised."

After levering Garry onto a surfboard, Hugh and Flynn started kicking in towards shore, holding Garry on top while Pip Pascoe paddled behind them, yelling a warning for each approaching wave, and ready to help should they lose their grip on his body. 

"We'd just hold on really tight and the wave would wash us around for a bit," Flynn said. 

Running in to the rescue

Once they got Garry onto the sand, the next step was to find a defibrillator, which is kept at the Warrnambool Surf Life Saving Club, 800 metres away. That's when Warrnambool nurse Laura Main jogged right into an emergency scenario, literally running into Erin Ballinger who had come to fetch the defibrillator. 

"I was going for a run and I had just got to the Surf Club and there was a young girl there yelling that she needed the defib," Laura said.

Nurse Laura Main was jogging along the foreshore when the rescue occurred (ABC South West Victoria: Emily Bissland)

Erin was exhausted, so Laura ran the defibrillator the 800 metres back to where Hugh and another passing nurse on holidays from Melbourne had begun CPR. 

"I stepped in and took over the compressions," Laura said. "Erin and Pip were trying to get the wetsuit off, that was pretty challenging."

Hugh Mahoney administered the defibrillator but it didn't bring back Garry's pulse, and the team was losing hope but never stopped trying to bring him back.

"The earliest you can get that defib on, the earliest you can get compressions and get that circulation, that's going to help with outcomes," Laura said. "And then the ambulance arrived and they worked on him for some time before they managed to get a pulse back.

"When I left the scene that day, I didn't hold much hope for him."

Pip Pascoe helped bring unconscious surfer Garry Druitt into shore (ABC South West Victoria: Emily Bissland)

That's what made a surprise phone conversation with Garry all the sweeter.

"I actually got a surprise yesterday and got to speak to Garry," Laura said. "For a man I don't know, I feel like I have a really strong connection to him.

"I was so pleased to be able to talk to him, it was one of my best phone calls!" 

// EMILY BISSLAND and JEREMY LEE
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