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Thursday, July 14, 2016 FROM THE COVER Laguna News-Post I 5MINDY SCHAUER, TILE PHOTOhe was swept off a rocky outcropping near Thousand Steps Beach.yearamong me .general public.Just a few weeks ago, Fanis said, he had to cut downGE 1or, more likely, many lifeguards - tried to stop them or save them or recovertheir body or they risked their own life to help them.Sometimes, all of theabove.The data on ocean deaths hint at some trends. People who die in local waters tend to be men and boys, typically under 30. The county’s most popular and biggest beaches, in Huntington and Newport, tend to have the most deaths.But the numbers also hint at the random nature of death in the ocean. Last year, 13 people died off Orange County; in 2013, just four did. This year, there have been two drown ings, though thesummer swim season -when most dr ownings happen - is still new.“People think the ocean is a big swimming pool.They have a false sense ofsecurity,” said Huntington Beach Marine Safety Lt.Claude Panis. “You’re entering a wilderness areathat is very dynamic. It can*■be a very dangerous place.”HIDDEN PART OF THE JOBBeing a lifeguard can blend the mundane and the beautiful with the tragic. Fanis, a lifeguard forHuntington City Beach for38 years, has had his share of emotional moments.He recalled an incident in 2007 when he puiied up to a tower to find a lifeguard with a panicked expression and his arms crossed across his chest -the sign a guard uses when he or she has seen a swimmer go under.Lifeguards refer to the “golden hour,” the periodbetween hearing that a swimmer has gone under and finding that swimmer. Each minute of the hour is more grim than the last, offering a smaller sliver of a chance that the life will besaved.“You’re racing the clock,” Panis said. “There’s that pressure to do everything right, knowing there’s a life at stake.” During the golden hour on that day guards quickly lined into formation to sweep the nearby waters. And they found the man, too, in just under an hour.He died.Often, guards say,there’s nothing they can do.Swimmers can have a heart attack or a stroke in the ocean just as easily as they might on land. Panisremembers a Seal Beach swimmer who slipped under the water while having a seizure. Lifeguards eventually searched for his body by helicopter.On one hand, they wererelieved to find him. On the ot he r, 1 '’a n is sa i d, they we re sobered to see his family expressing their grief onthe sand.“You realize ... their whole family has changed.”Lifeguards also see theirshare of suicides at the beach. Some walk into the water and keep swimming until they can’t. Others jump off a pier, sometimes with weights tied to their bodies.“People like to go to the beach to die,” said Newport Beach Battalion Chief Brent Jacobsen, who has been a lifeguard for about30 years.At least nine people in Orange County have committed suicide in the oceanover the past 10 years, according to coroner’s data. But that statistic doesn’t reflect many others who end their lives just outside of the water' - another element of beach work that’s probably known more among lifeguards than it isa man’s body from where it was hanging below the cliff railings near Huntington’s Dog Beach.“1 untied the knot andslowly lowered him down,”Plan is recalled.WARNINGSLifeguards have a saying: Alcohol and water don’t mix.After partying at downtown bars, people sometimes think it’s a good idea to jump off a pier or take a night-time' dip. But Panis warns that at most beaches there is only one guard on patrol between dusk and midnight, and it’s probable that he or she isn’t going to be nearby or even see a drunken person when trouble* happens.More than 20 of the people who died in the ocean since 2006 had some foreign substance in their body, according to coronerffip vHf i vfiii forat as waves travel from deep to shallow we* ter; they wilt break near the shoreline.When waves break strongly in some locations and weakly in others, water circulates Into narrow, fast-moving belts of water traveling offshore.Rip current speeds are typicaUy t to 2 feet per second, and can be as strong as 8feet per second.More than TOO' (frowning* due to rip currents occur every year in the UnitedStates.flow HI KMfiTfryA channel of churning, choppy water Notable difference in water color A line of foam, seaweed or debris moving steadily seaward A break in the Incoming wave patternIf caught In arip currentSwim out of the current in a direction following the shoreline. If you are unable to swim out of the rip current, float or calmly tread water. When out of the current, swim toward shore. If you are still unable to reach shore, draw attention to yourself; face the shore, waveyour arms and yell for help.Source: United StatesLifeguard Associationdata.Still, the biggest killer,according to lifeguards anddrowning statistics, are rip currents.“People are freaking out about sharks,” Panis said. “They should be more concerned about rip currents. Rip currents have caused more deaths than anything else.”A person can be standing in waist-deep water and get swept into a rip, their body forced far from the sandybeach as water pulls themout to sea.Even expert watermen are not immune to the ocean’s dangers.Ben Carlson was the prototypical lifeguard: young, fit, a surfer who spent countless hours battling the ocean’s waves. Two years ago, on July 6, during a rescue in big waves, the32-year-old Newport guardlost his life.If it could happen to him, it could happen to anyone,” Jacobsen said.“That speaks to the seriousness and danger of what can happen.”Newport lifeguard chief Rob Williams is part of a newly formed group calledthe Orange County Task Force on Drowning Prevention, formed by the county and run by Orange County Health Care Agency. The goal is to reduce deaths in pools and oceans around t he county.Lifeguards make thousands of rescues each year. But Williams and others say a more important number is for the warnings they issue to swimmers andothers before they get intotrouble. Last year, NewportBeach guards reported a record 224,000 prevent ive actions.The chances of dying near a guarded lifeguard tower are 1 in 18 million, according to the United States Lifeguard Association.“The biggest part of ourjob is prevention,” Williamssaid.CONTACT THE WRITER:1 c onne II ylt;£oc re gist er.com
Newspaper Details
Laguna News Post
Laguna Beach, California, US
Thu, Jul 14, 2016
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Mike M.
USA 14 Apr 2022
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