Austria's water rescue forces are close to exhaustion as more and more people need to be rescued from the country's Alpine lakes. One of the reasons is stand-up paddling: the trendy water-sport is more dangerous than many think.
Emergency forces at lake Wörthersee are reporting an increase of 40 percent in rescue operations compared to last year, according to Austria's broadcaster ORF. The problem is risky behavior.
"People fall into the water and panic and drown," says Karmen Kreidl, who leads lifeguard operations on Vienna's Danube branches. "The number of rescue operations is continuously increasing."
Many stand-up paddlers underestimate the more frequent and more severe storms and go further out than they would if they were swimming, Kreidl adds.
And when the storm hits, instead of paddling to the nearest shore, they often take longer routes back to their car or belongings - risking their lives.
"I fell off the board in the middle of the lake so I had to swim back for like 30 minutes," Vienna resident Levin Stanke told CGTN.
That's something many others wouldn't be able to do. Eight percent of Austrians can't swim at all, and many more wouldn't last 30 minutes in open water.
"We've experienced that less and less people are really able to swim for a longer time," says Gerald Schimpf from Vienna's fire department.
Increasing challenges
Challenges posed by severe weather are increasing. Last year, Austria's fire departments registered twice as many storm-related missions as the year before.
However, the biggest obstacle for Vienna's rescue divers is emergency callers not properly describing the location of the accident.
"Of course we do have the opportunity to locate them also via cellphone," Schimpf adds. "But the more information we have, the better we can react."
The best description would be visible buildings on shore or the distance to bridges. Too often, however, divers can only recover the body when it's too late.
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