The purpose of this article is to assess the activities of the Voluntary Water Rescue Emergency Service (Wodne Ochotnicze Pogotowie Ratunkowe – WOPR), whose purpose is to help people exposed to life-threatening and health hazards in water areas. For the purposes of research, rescue organizations as state entities and conducting their activities within the third sector were characterized in the first part of the work. The next part focuses on Voluntary Water Rescue Emergency Service. Then the legal basis for the functioning of the analyzed organization, its structure, organization and objectives resulting from both legal bases regulating rescue operations in water areas were described in Poland, as well as statutory objectives. The last part of the work focused on the activities of selected WOPR field branches in 2022, assessing their activities on the basis of an audit carried out on these entities. Based on the audit reports, positive aspects of field operations as well as irregularities noted were listed. Based on this assessment, the impact of WOPR field operations on ensuring safety in water areas in Poland was determined. For the purposes of the article, a research problem was formulated: What impact does the activity of WOPR field branches have on increasing the level of safety in water areas in Poland? The study required the use of qualitative methods, including the analysis of legal acts and selected items of literature on the subject, as well as the analysis of reliable internet sources.
