. The lifeguard of 40 years clocked over 340 hours for the season, the most hours of any volunteer lifeguard for the 2025/26 season, according to Surf Lifesaving New Zealand.
His main motivation is manaakitanga , the act of offering hospitality, kindness, generosity and support. However, Witten-Hannah insists that he gets back more than he puts in, whether that is meeting members of the public or camaraderie from fellow lifeguards.
“[The public] see me standing there day after day between them and the rip, and they are grateful for it, so I’m getting back from them, and that helps keep your noggin squared away.”
I’m a lifeguard at Piha, and I regularly patrol with Witten-Hannah. The most volunteer hours isn’t the only award he qualifies for. He could easily be the most interesting person in the room wherever he goes.
Karel Witten-Hannah on Patrol at Piha Beach with his daughter, Bex, and grandson, Max.
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He and his wife, Caroline, built their house mortgage-free, one room at a time, over 20 years in Karekare, the beach south of Piha. He was a United Nations polling station officer during the 1993 Cambodian elections as the country sought to rebuild after genocide and civil war. He was an extra in the 1993 Academy Award-winning movie, The Piano , which was filmed in Karekare. His work coordinating a wood carving programme in a maximum security prison led him to meet Princess Anne during her 1999 royal visit. In other words, Witten-Hannah could be New Zealand’s Forrest Gump.
How he started lifeguarding
Witten-Hannah qualified as a lifeguard out of principle after he started teaching his children at Nippers, the surf lifesaving programme for kids. It was 1985, and he was a 34-year-old computer programming teacher at Massey High School in West Auckland.
“If you’re teaching kids about lifeguarding, you should be a lifeguard.”
He took to the role immediately. Within two years, he was Karekare’s surf club captain.
Lifeguarding became a family affair, with his three children being volunteer lifeguards at different stages in their lives. Now, five of his grandchildren are involved in surf lifesaving in some way.
Karel Witten-Hannah with grandchildren (left to right) Finn, Tom, Max, Jessika, Ben and Noah.
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“…we often have three generations of our family on patrol, and I’m really proud of how good my grandkids are as lifeguards.”
The moments that left a mark
Besides lifeguarding, Witten-Hannah is a volunteer firefighter and local paramedic. After four decades of responding to emergencies, he has seen a few things.
One of the most tragic and personal events was a plane crash in 1998 on Karekare Beach. Witten-Hannah’s friends flew a light plane to Karekare, landing on the hard sand at low tide and joined Witten-Hannah for a swim while he was on patrol. The pilot, Sergeant Phil Stubbs, commented while they were swimming, “Life doesn’t get much better than this,” says Witten-Hannah.
In the evening, the plane took off, stalled and slammed into the sand. Witten-Hannah and several others, including his two daughters, ran over to the mangled plane. To cut a long and graphic story short : the passenger survived after Witten-Hannah sawed off a pedal to free him, but Stubbs died at the scene.
“You tend to do the best you can, and that’s what I did, so we gave those guys the best possible chance they could have.”
Witten-Hannah remains uneasy whenever a light plane flies overhead.
There were other times, when Witten-Hannah “might have bitten off more than I could chew”, he says.
In the late 1980s, he had to tow another lifeguard using a rescue tube back to the beach in some large swells. They were swept to Mercer Bay, a small beach surrounded by cliffs, and were choppered out.
Then, there was the community catastrophe of Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023. Parts of Karekare were cut off for a handful of days, with slips bringing down numerous houses.
“I carry those with me,” says Witten-Hannah, of the people he successfully helped and those who succumbed to their injuries or the ocean or whatever situation befell them.
The accumulated weight of the hundreds of people he encountered through emergency response services became too much for Witten-Hannah in 2024. With the help of SLSNZ, he received help through the Te Kiwi Māia , The Courageous Kiwi. The organisation has trained psychologists as well as support from fellow emergency responders.
How he stays strong and sharp
Doing what was necessary to keep his “noggin squared away” is one tool in the shed that Witten-Hanna uses to stay in emergency response services.
Another tool is the connection he gets from interacting with the public and his fellow lifeguards. Community and social interaction is a key marker for ageing well that is backed by a heap of scientific research.
Karel Witten-Hannah credits being around young lifeguards with helping keep his “noggin” sharp.
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Patrols are often a hodgepodge of people from different ages, interests, professions and personalities. He takes on a mentoring role with the younger teenage guards.
“…It’s about belonging to that strong team.”
For fitness, Witten-Hannah completes a 600-metre run-swim-run that all lifeguards must do ahead of every season. He swims and hikes three times a week. He lifts weights and has rowing and cycling machines.
Witten-Hannah can do everything the younger lifeguards can do, but prefers to leave the rough ride in the inflatable rescue boat (IRB) to the younger lifeguards. That way, they “have a whack” at a rescue to build confidence.
“No secret: I’ve got a bit of arthritis in my knees,” he says, adding that “my knees don’t need to be in the IRB.”
He can do it, and he did it this season when there was no one else to crew the IRB when a fisherman fell into the water, sustaining a head injury. However, his preferred method of support is low-tech – a rescue tube and a pair of fins.
“… I don’t have to be the pointy end of the spear anymore.”
