Rhino's Ramblings - Life And Death On A Black Sea Beach

By Robert Thomas - Opinion/Commentary

Today marks an anniversary.

It’s officially been one year since I put my toes into the warm waters of the Black Sea.

It’s also the one year anniversary of the day I jumped in with all my clothes on to help pull a stranger out of the water.

I remember it was near the end of a long day relaxing on Lanzheron Beach.

Lanzheron Beach is for those who do not know one of the most popular beaches in all of Odessa.

It’s accessible by a bus ride a short walk past the amusement park, the eternal flame and a menagerie of street merchants hoping to loosen up some of those Hryvinas you have in your wallet.

I remember the day it was sunny and the two months I spent in my apartment with friends nine time zones away from Moose Jaw was about to end.

It was a hot sunny day as I shelled out my 65 Hryvinas ($4.50 Canadian) on a lounge chair and umbrella to protect me from the sun.

I remember buying a salted flounder from one of the various sellers who populate the beach.

These are the guys who all day in the sun walk up and down through the multitude of beachgoers offering you almost everything imaginable right to the comfort of your lounger.

It’s a hard job. But a very lucrative one with sellers paying for the right to do it.

Lanzheron Beach has been a focal point of Odessa from the time of the Tsars. It’s the stuff of legend.

It’s a public beach where a multitude of people come to relax alone and enjoy their vacations at the sea.

Lanzheron Beach was once populated with young Odessits who were either frolicking in the sand or working there for the Summer.

But today the workers are often from other cities in Ukraine who have come seeking the bigger money of the Paris of the Black Sea.

The young Odessits have for the most part left.

Finding good and reliable younger people in Odessa is almost impossible Olya tells me.

Young Odessits have seemingly given up on Ukraine and gone to Poland or further west in Europe for a better life.

Laying back in the sun I basked in what was to be my last afternoon for 2019 sitting on a Black Sea beach.

I sat there for hours taking pictures of the changing landscape as people came and went throughout the afternoon.

There were the seniors who for about two hours fought with their single umbrella to catch the right amount of shade.

Then there was the family with the small brown and white dog who kept going after their ice cream.

They didn’t sit around too much but you could tell they were more wealthier Ukrainians likely from Kriviy Rih by their accents.

I have seen them before. Wealthy compared to their neighbours but not wealthy enough to sit on Turkey's Mediterranean coast for two weeks. So Odessa will have to do.

Then there was the two 20 something year olds in bikinis who brought their own beer and asked me if I could open it for them.

This was my Charles Atlas moment on the beach.

If I failed to open the beers for the two damsels in distress I would go down in history as the 140 pound weakling who failed an epic quest.

So I tensed up the old muscles and while carefully holding in my belly cracked those two beers open with ease.

There would be no sand kicked in this Moose Javian's face that day.

After that it was time to go home.

The hot Black Sea sand literally disappearing from between my toes for another year.

I went and changed, going for one last walk down the pier to see how the fishing was going.

As I walked down the pier I looked back over my shoulder just a some guy dove into the water where he should not have and a girl let out a scream.

I turned and somehow knew what happened he had hit his head on the bottom.

To this day I cannot explain it but I momentarily paused, threw my wallet and phone into my satchel, then I jumped fully clothed into the water.

Somehow I managed to get a hold of the guy and then as a non-swimmer bobbed for what seemed an eternity pulling this man towards the beach.

It all came so fast as other people jumped in and then the four of us dragged him up onto the beach.

With so many holiday-goers as we got towards the shore there were people on holiday who jumped in and started Cardio-pulminary Respiration (CPR). See photo and a bystander response below.

“Rescuers just saved a man.
They pumped it out for half an hour until the ambulance arrived. Fortunately, the guy started breathing on his own when the ambulance arrived.
He has a wedding in the near future, will be a gift for his future wife.
Once again, I was convinced that you need to constantly undergo training in saving people. You never know when you will need such knowledge

”

— Bystander post on Facebook

I watched for well over five minutes and then remembered I had tossed my belongings onto the pier.

With thousands of people on the beach I thought I had lost my keys, my ID, my bus fare home. And it is a three hour walk back to the apartment in wet clothes.

Then suddenly I looked and there was a woman handing me my satchel as I faded back from the scene.

For more than 30 minutes those three women along with others worked on that stranger.

You could hear mumblings from the crowd the guy was brought back to life.

The ambulance came and other people pitched in sprinting back and forth the 200 meters to the ambulance and the beach bringing the gear.

I then had to go and change or I would miss my bus and ride home.

But I can tell you I left the beaches of Odessa feeling I was 10 feet tall.

Two days later I was on a plane back to Moose Jaw.

But deep down inside I needed to find out what happened to the stranger on the beach.

So I asked on the Odessa Facebook bitch page (all cities have them) and found out after 45 minutes the CPR worked.

Somehow there was a miracle and the man had come back to life and was able to breath on his own.

I found out he had a fiance but I never learnt their names.

Then suddenly I got swamped with people thanking me for the rescue.

I finally had to say the real heroes on the beach were the people who knew CPR and worked themselves into exhaustion.

The ones who wanted to help.

These people didn’t have to help a stranger but they did and they saved his life.

They made me a lifelong believer in the value of learning CPR.

My part was really over in less than a minute.

I was just part of a group of strangers who came together in an instant and had saved a life.

A couple of days later I received bad news the young man had passed away from complications during the night.

I never learnt his name.