Brother fighting to see shark attack victim's death make a difference

Eighteen months after the death of shark attack victim, Ben Gerring in Perth, his brother is making sure his legacy lives on.

WA metropolitan coastal councils are being offered $25,000 to install unique numbers at each beach to help emergency services get to incidents as quickly as possible.

Called beach emergency numbers, or BEN for short, they're in memory of Ben Gerring - a young father-to-be who was killed by a Great White Shark while surfing off Falcon.

The cause is championed by his brother Rick Gerring who wanted to make sure Ben's death makes a difference.

"His legacy will live on in that way and he's going to be looking after people on the beaches and hopefully saving some lives at the same time," he said.

From now on, councils will be able to apply for grants to install signs like these along the coast.

Each beach will be assigned a unique code that can be given to emergency services to help them get to a location without delay.

"We all know that when there's an emergency whether it be a shark attack or a heart attack that time matters, every minute or every second is precious," Fisheries Minister Dave Kelly said.

The codes will already be programmed into ambulance, fire and police databases, allowing them to navigate directly to that location.

"It will have a massively positive impact on the way we operate," Paul Hogg from St John Ambulance said.

Numbering each beach is such a simple idea but when time is quite literally the difference between life and death it's one that could make all the difference.

"Sometimes the best ideas are simple and sometimes it takes an unfortunate incident before these things are thought about," CEO of Joondalup Garry Hunt said.

Mr Gerring said he thinks his brother "would be pretty stoked" with the idea.