Letter of the week: Set up volunteer response team for maritime emergencies
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Mr Vivek Sahani said the family had seen closed-circuit television footage from the Spectrum of the Seas, which his mother and father had been on.
PHOTO: ST FILE
Two cases of people falling off ships made the news this year. In February, it happened to a harbour pilot (Harbour pilot dies after falling overboard off S’pore’s Southern Islands, Feb 12) and last month, a cruise ship passenger fell overboard (Woman who fell from cruise ship into S’pore Strait has died, says son, Aug 1).
There have been other incidents in Singapore waters that require search and rescue operations, where additional help from a volunteer response team could have been beneficial.
There are currently members of the public trained in basic firefighting and first aid who register themselves on apps like MyResponder and SGSecure to volunteer as responders in an emergency. They will be alerted when there are incidents that require their assistance.
Perhaps a similar response arrangement can be set up for maritime incidents.
There are many harbour craft skippers, boaters with a Powered Pleasure Craft Driving Licence, and boat-handlers with experience from national service or from their professional fields. I am one of them. Under the coordination of government agencies, we could be of help when there is an incident around our coastal waters.
In the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, volunteer sea rescue services like the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and the Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution (KNRM) have boats dedicated to search and rescue. The volunteers use them with the guidance of coast guards.
In 2022, the RNLI saved 389 lives at sea and the KNRM made more than 4,000 rescues. Volunteers are people who live near the coast and they have a pager to alert them to an emergency.
In Singapore, there are volunteer components in national agencies such as the Singapore Armed Forces Volunteer Corps for the SAF, Volunteer Special Constabulary for the Singapore Police Force as well as the Civil Defence Auxiliary Unit for the Singapore Civil Defence Force.
A volunteer organisation dedicated to helping maritime search and rescue in Singapore waters, made up of competent boatmen and lifeguards, can complement agencies like the Police Coast Guard and Republic of Singapore Navy.
Volunteers can also play a role in educating the public of the importance of safety while at sea, such as when they are on ferry trips to Batam.
Tan Teng Han
