The Labour Day Long Weekend marked the end of Queensland Surf Life Saving’s 2024/25 volunteer patrol season for five out of the six regions across the state, with the statistics showing that beachgoers are still not heeding the warnings to swim between the flags.

Over the 2024/2025 season, volunteer surf lifesavers in North Barrier, Wide Bay Capricorn, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and the Gold Coast performed 1052 rescues, an increase of almost 200 on last season, with the highest number of drownings recorded in the past three seasons.

Greg Cahill, Surf Life Saving Queensland Chief Operating Officer said the efforts of volunteer surf life saving members did not go unnoticed.

“It has been a busy season with our volunteers keeping almost 4.3 million beachgoers safe, performing 1052 rescues and 14,657 first aid treatments within the seven month period.

“We are disappointed that the number of drownings have increased. We had a decrease in the number of drownings outside of patrol areas during the 23/24 Season so to have the number increase to the highest we’ve seen since 2022/23 tells us that people aren’t heeding the warnings and continue to put themselves and others at risk by swimming in non patrolled areas,” he said.

The number of first aid treatments (14,657 up from 9357 last season) and preventative treatments (109,760 up from 88,383) also increased partly due to an influx of blue bottle jellyfish across South East Queensland.

“To all our volunteers, we thank you for helping to make Queensland’s beaches a safer place to swim and for returning Queenslanders home safely to their friends and family,” Cahill said.

“Our attention now turns to North Queensland who will continue to patrol throughout the cooler months with our volunteer lifesavers in the five other regions to return to the beaches in September.”

2024 / 2025 Season Statistics:

Queensland Statewide Numbers 
Total Rescues – 1052
Total Preventative Actions – 109760
First Aid Treatments – 14657
Beach Related Drownings – 12 (all outside patrol areas)
*23/24 Season – 8   22/23 Season – 11
Number of visitors to Queensland beaches – 4,284,187

Regional Breakdown 
Gold Coast 
Total Rescues – 469
Total Preventative Actions – 33,908
First Aid Treatments – 6290
Beach related drownings – 42% of the State total occurred within the Gold Coast Region
Number of visitors to Gold Coast beaches – 2,033,985

Sunshine Coast 
Total Rescues – 365
Total Preventative Actions – 30,662
First Aid Treatments – 6,144
Beach related drownings – 17% of the State total occurred within the Sunshine Coast Region
Number of visitors to Sunshine Coast beaches – 1,534,061

Brisbane
Total Rescues – 30
Total Preventative Actions – 23,283
First Aid Treatments – 1,145
Beach related drownings – 0
Number of visitors to Brisbane beaches – 242,723

Wide Bay Capricorn 
Total Rescues – 19
Total Preventative Actions – 5,055
First Aid Treatments – 472
Beach related drownings – 17% of the State total occurred within the WBC Region
Number of visitors to WBC beaches – 194,039

North Barrier 
Total Rescues – 2
Total Preventative Actions – 7,712
First Aid Treatments – 377
Beach related drownings – 8% of the State total occurred within the North Barrier Region
Number of visitors to North Barrier beaches – 149,975

North Queensland 
Total Rescues – 3
Total Preventative Actions – 3,266
First Aid Treatments – 212
Beach related drownings – 17% of the State total occurred within the North Barrier Region
Number of visitors to NQ beaches – 129,404