After botched construction dispute

Goodbye water rescue – volunteers were dumped

Just under a month before the start of the season, the water rescue service will have to disembark, and in future the Samaritans will ensure the safety of bathers at Lake Pichlinger See in an emergency alongside Linz AG's lake supervision service.(Bild: Dostal Harald)

It can happen that fast! For 50 (!) years, the water rescue volunteers were allowed to work at Lake Pichling. But their voluntary work has now come to an abrupt end. Linz AG prefers the Samariterbund as a partner in future. The decision is said to have been made not because a volunteer rescuer raised the issue of construction defects in the 650,000 euro building.

The water rescue service has been based at Lake Pichling since 1973. Its volunteers have been keeping watch over the safety of bathers and water sports enthusiasts at Linz's local recreational oasis for 50 (!) years now. Until now! Since Tuesday evening, it seems certain that the volunteer water rescuers will no longer be on duty at Lake Pichling.

Linz AG wants Samariterbund
The reason: Linz AG wanted a stationed paramedic to complete the rescue chain due to the newly created space conditions. An idea that is not new - the Red Cross had already helped out in Pichling in the past.

Water rescue should have swallowed demotion
What is new, however, is that Linz AG wants to bring the Samaritans on board alongside the water rescue service and then have the latter as the sole point of contact. According to Linz AG, the fact that the water rescue service has been demoted to a "junior partner", so to speak, and its operational management taken away from it, is by no means due to the fact that there was a dispute between the players after - as reported - the newly built base, which cost around EUR 650,000, colloquially speaking "flooded" at the end of last year and some things inside were also said to be not quite optimal.

"We want to remain independent"
Talks had been held between the Samaritans and the water rescue service. In response to an inquiry from Krone on Tuesday, Water Rescue Head Gerald Berger said: "We made it clear that we don't want to mix the teams and that we want to continue to operate independently at Lake Pichling." The final news followed in the evening: Linz AG does not want two emergency organizations working in parallel at the site. Berger: "We will close the local office at Lake Pichling."