Swedish Sea Rescue Society Interview

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Every day you and I get bombarded with negative news. And just like our bodies become what we eat, our minds become the information that we consume. If you want to stay positive, it’s so important that you also listen to stories that inspire you and uplifts you. In this podcast, we interview leading experts dedicated to solving the world’s most pressing problems. And if you stick around, I promise you will not only be as informed as if you watch the news, you will be uplifted, inspired, and I’m more positive energy in your life. Welcome to Great.com Talks With…

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Welcome. Today, Great.com talks with Matthew Fader, who is responsible for international search and rescue at the Swedish Sea Rescue Society. And if you haven’t done so before, please consider hitting subscribe to this podcast, because today we are going to explore sea rescue. And I’m really curious to speak with a Swedish sea rescue society because they are an organization that is involved with 80 percent of all the sea rescues around the coast of Sweden. Matthew Fator, how are you today doing?

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Very good. Thank you very much.

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All right. So aside from that brief introduction, how would you describe the Swedish Sea Rescue Society to someone that might not be so familiar with your organization?

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Sure. Give you the elevator pitch. The Swedish Sea Swedish Sea Rescue Society is a non-governmental organization. It’s volunteer based. Like you said, we do over 80 percent of the sea rescue in Sweden. We have a lot of boats and a lot of volunteers ready on standby to help anyone in need.

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It’s pretty much it.

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All right, so there is a great Swedish word that is called Lump Kraba, it means a land grab, someone that is not at I am not a person that is at sea. So I’m really curious to know in Sweden, how big is the problem then of people drowning at sea?

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What are you accomplishing?

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Yes, if you think about Sweden has always been a seafaring nation, you know, not just on the seven seas around the world and sending out sailors, but traditionally used this enormous coastline that we have and the most islands in the world, actually, people living on these different islands, using the coast for leisure crafts, for fishing.

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So if I believe correctly, if I remember correctly, it’s over a million leisure boats in the country of Sweden.

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Wow. Yeah, that is a big amount, it’s not that much less than the number of cars, actually, but I wouldn’t think of sea accidents as like a major type of accident, but maybe that’s because I’m not so familiar with it.

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So if you think about the enormous coastline and all the small just, you know, vacation areas, islands, as well as the Great Lakes that we have, and a lot of people like to get on the water, whether, again, if it’s fishing or just kind of cruising around or going from island to island using their vacation, especially under 2020 when they couldn’t travel abroad.

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So there’s a lot of usage on the water and we’re there ready to get the alarm. Also do preventative actions to help people that have, you know, maybe their motor broke down or they ran out of gas or they get a line in the propeller. So there’s a number of different categories of the actions that we do.

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Right, and I read on your website that your vision is to have zero sea accidents and to accomplish that, what is the key element is that you guys are ready with your boats and are helping people that are in need, or is it more of a preventive thing to educate people about sea safety and all this?

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It’s definitely a combination of all the above. You know, we have a charter and like any organization, and it’s pretty much been unchanged for one hundred and thirteen years. We started in 1907 and it’s to maintain interest in sea rescue. Just put it on the agenda so people know what sea rescue is just like we’re doing now. We also want to suggest improvements in how to streamline the organization. Then you do the actual sea rescues and as well as humanitarian.

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So there’s a lot of preventative sea safety information that we can put out there, everything from how you run your boat, navigation tips, things like that, before it becomes an accident.

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But if an accident does happen, then of course, we’re ready to respond.

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And what is the main reason that people get in accidents at sea is that poor knowledge of navigation, is it bad weather. Is it drinking and boating? What could it be?

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If I am referring back to what I said before, that we have the most islands in the world even more than the Philippines or Canada, but a lot of the islands here are teeny, tiny rocks that are sticking up out of the water where they can also be rocks that are submerged. So there’s a lot of navigational errors where boats run aground, you know, unintentionally, of course. So navigation is tricky in certain areas. The weather is very unpredictable in Scandinavia, even in the summertime, when it’s high boating season, storms can come out of nowhere. There’s simple errors or people actually just need help. It’s not necessarily that it’s a boating accident. It can be someone that hurt themselves in a remote area or even an area that we’re very close to. So we can respond to those.

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Right, and.

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So you said you are a non-governmental organization and you are financed by member fees, so. Yes, yeah. So what is the direction you’re heading in your organization? Where would you what is your vision for the future to achieve zero sea deaths? Do you want to expand your fleet?

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Yeah, yeah. I can say that again. Looking at our past hundred and thirteen years, we’ve kind of adopted this proximity strategy like, you know, the coastal stations and the rescue units are to the accident.

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The faster you can get to the scene as well as save lives, especially in drowning cases, it doesn’t always have to be boats, it can be people bathing and swimming and so forth. So we’ve increased the number of boats. We’ve increased the speed of the boats that we see to a safe level. A number of stations around the coast, but really it’s about getting the prevention and sea safety information out there to be able to get down to those levels. And one of the most important things for us is to be able to get the alarm in time. You know, people get in an accident just like on land. If you’re a land crab, you call 112. And that goes to the emergency service S.O.S. alarm. And then it sends out the alarm to us, you know, sometimes. S.O.S Alarm, or 112 doesn’t get the alarm and we don’t know there’s an accident happening, so we really want people to know how they can send out the alarm so we can get to them in time. But we’re extremely close to getting down to that zero vision, you know, of no deaths or no drownings. If you can send an alarm, we can probably get to you in time.

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Uh.

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Ok, so some people drown then because they hit the boat on a cliff and then the boat starts to take in water, you end up in the water and then it takes after a certain time you’re drowning. Or how do the drowning accidents look?

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A lot of the drowning accidents around Sweden are related to bathing. You know, it’s people going swimming. So we respond to those as well. They don’t have to have a boat involved.

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But there are cases like you described now where people run aground or a start sinking or catch fire or what have you.

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Almost reaching the zero drowning accident vision seems quite impressive, especially given how many boats Sweden has. So how is Sweden doing as a nation when it comes to preventing this kind of accidents compared to other countries?

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I like speaking from my, you know, point of view, I think Sweden’s doing really well when it comes to taking care of both members and non members and people that are on the sea. We have a very strong alliance with other sea rescue organizations. We work internationally and learn from each other. And there are similar organizations, especially in northern Europe, in England and Holland and Germany, and there are different types of organizations from country to country, some of them where the government takes over the main responsibility, where others like us and Germany and England in particular, that have volunteer organizations doing a lot of the rescues. So we’re doing really well. At the same time, drowning is an issue in Sweden with bathing related drownings, and that’s where we see a lot more work can be done, both information wise and awareness.

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And speaking of information and awareness, let’s say that Swedish Sea Rescue Society, that you could send out a letter that every person in Sweden would read educating them about what do I really need to think of to make sure I prevent drowning accidents?

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What would you write in a message like that?

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It’s a tough question. Global drowning is one of the major causes of death around the whole entire world. But I think in our waters and in our context in Sweden, it has to do with knowing your limits. You know, it’s like don’t swim out to areas and think you can get back just because you can do it 10 years ago or five years ago, what have you. It’s unfortunately, it’s men, middle age men that are the main victims of drowning in Sweden. It’s just overestimating your capabilities. And there and of course, there can be alcohol involved, but not in all cases.

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That sounds like I mean, the risk group then, so I haven’t actually tested my abilities swimming straight out in the open waters. We have a lake where my country house is and it’s maybe 300 meters to the other side of the lake, like, how far should I go?

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Is it safe to swim in open water?

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Another tough question, a lot depends on the weather conditions, the water temperature, if it’s windy, if there’s waves, currents, all that kind of stuff, but it’s better to swim along the coast rather than out into the deep.

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You don’t need to go into the deep end. Really. What’s the point?

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That’s what I’ve been sticking to us for. But about reaching the other side is more epic in a way. It can be more stupid.

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Yeah, I don’t know. We don’t want people to be scared of the water. It’s not about being afraid of bodies of water. That’s the reason we exist. So people can enjoy the oceans in the sea lake. So it’s really about knowledge and self awareness, learning, just kind of basics of CPR and things like that of someone else or a family member gets into trouble, but also be able to know how to call if you need help.

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Right, and I appreciate how you describe yourself as a society and I get our community feeling from the work that you do and the way you have members. So imagine now that someone is listening to this podcast and they somehow want to be involved either by educating themselves or by.

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Becoming involved in the community and helping prevent accidents somehow. Yeah, what can they do to become more involved?

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I agree with the idea of society that the name both in Swedish and English, really appeals to us because we are you know, we’re one big society of sea rescuers trying to promote these things and every single station there. Seventy three stations, two thousand three hundred volunteers that are their own societies, you know, taking care of their society members are part of our society. So, one, you become a member and you support sea rescue. You know, for the reasons I explained before, we’re trying to get it on the agenda, keep the interest in it, and learn about sea safety. And with that membership, you get information in the form of magazines and you can look at the websites and follow us.

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You can also become a volunteer, which is fantastic. There’s so many people that want to help other people, but they don’t know what the outlet is. Where sea rescue, we give you a chance to save lives and there’s no real higher purpose in the volunteer activity. And so you can contact local stations, you know, through our website. And if you live within 15 minutes or work within 15 minutes of the station and you go through the training and eventually become a sea rescue volunteer.

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And the reason I say 15 minutes, is because when we get an alarm and it is a danger for life, we get the call and we have to be on the boat casting off, ready to go within 15 minutes. So it’s much like an ambulance service in that way or other types of rescue services, fire and so forth. It’s just we’re volunteers.

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Hmm, I can imagine the sense of purpose that comes with being involved in a society and a higher purpose, like you mentioned, so.

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What can someone do then to keep in touch with your organization? Do you have maybe a newsletter, a website, something like that?

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Yeah. So we do have a website. Well, it’s kind of hard to say in English so there’s a link in the description if you look at Swedish Sea Rescue Society link, right, there’s Facebook pages, there’s Instagram, there’s things like that.

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And, you know, social media in itself is a very interesting way for our sea rescuers, the volunteers, to tell the stories of what they’re doing, you know, in picture form, but also a short description of some of the fantastic efforts that they’re doing every single day. So it’s a fun way to follow things and let the people tell the story of what they’re doing.

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Beautiful.

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I feel like I’m so happy with this conversation, because you have definitely plugged some leaks and misunderstandings when it comes to my own perception of sea rescue and the importance and the magnitude of it. So, Matthew, I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with great.com today. Thank you very much. Thank you. And for you listening, if you enjoyed this conversation and you would like to. For more people to hear about important topics like sea rescue, please consider subscribing to this podcast because they will greatly increase our chances to get through the algorithms and be seen by more people. And thank you for listening and we’ll see you in the next episode.

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