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New Era of Rescue Services?

Recently some footage of what was reported to be the first real water rescue made by a drone at Lennox Head, New South Wales, Australia went viral. There were two swimmers just outside the surf line kind of floating around. The footage was from the drone itself as it dropped this package from maybe 100 feet up. Upon impact this big sausage looking thing inflated. Two swimmers swam over to it and floated on it back to shore. At one point it looked like a wave knocked one of them off it, but the guy swam easily back to it and rode it in. The announcer talked about how it was the first rescue by drones.

Drones have been used by lifeguard agencies for quite awhile now for surveillance. There are a couple of beaches that I know of that fly the on a set schedule as shark spotters. The operators have to be trained as pilots since they’re a governmental agency. Newport Beach, which is pretty cashed up, flies them three times a week for a 20 minute flight. If they see a shark bigger than a certain size they increase the schedule until it moves out of the area. There’s actually an Australian company that has gotten into them pretty heavily for mountain rescue that have been working up prototypes on the beach. The one I’ve seen is called the “Little Ripper”.  The mountain rescue ones have been shown to be pretty effective in spotting lost hikers and dropping survival packages to them as they wait for help to arrive on foot. But the ocean has been more of a challenge.

Most of the commonly available and affordable drones currently have a flight time of 20 minutes and can’t run in over 20 mile an hour winds. The Little Ripper is apparently a bit better in flight time and can fly in slightly higher winds. It also can be equipped with night vision. But even so, that’s not much good in search and recovery operations that typically take place during pretty extreme conditions over large areas, requiring much longer flight times.

This “rescue” was the byproduct of a $430,000 government funded program and it was on a test flight by a happy coincidence. It looks like the two swimmers were not actually in distress, but maybe they were tired. They were able to swim to the tube a couple of times. It looks like had they actually been drowning they couldn’t have made forward motion to grab the float.

I think the day will come where there will be drones available that may be able to augment beach lifesaving programs in very real and cost effective ways. Particularly in remote locations or for search and recovery operations. For now they’re a great way to get a camera in the air for short periods of time under the right conditions. It appears for a while longer we’ll be droning on about drones every time something like this goes viral.

Mind Over Matter

I guess it’s all in how you look at it.

I hate the cold. I’d be happy if it never dipped below 80 degrees year round. I have a lot of friends through the International Lifesaving Federation from all over and I mentioned how cold it’s been here to  the head of the lifesaving federation of Norway and to the Executive Director of the Danish Lifesaving Federation. Big mistake. Telling northern Europeans it’s cold in Galveston, Texas is a little like telling someone from Cairo that the Strand is “really old”.

The reply from Norway was a picture showing a road dusted with snow with what looks like a couple of inches on the sides. It says, “In the USA- Close all the schools there’s no way we can go to school in this weather!” Then it’s followed by another picture of a snow covered road between what looks like huge ice cliffs on both sides. The caption for this one reads, “In Norway- Kids if you do well on this test I promise we can take a bath in the lake, your dad will break the ice for us.”

As if I wasn’t already feeling like a whiner, I then got my buddy’s reply from Denmark. Erik told me how they’d gotten to feeling pretty cooped up since the days only had about 7 hours of daylight and it had been snowing several feet, so they hadn’t seen the sun in a number of days. He and his fellow lifeguards decided to go out for some “training”. They went to a nearby lake, cut a hole in the ice with a chainsaw, then put on really thick wetsuits and dive gear. Dropping into the water with a soccer ball, they inflated their buoyancy compensators so they floated up like corks. Standing upside down on the bottom of the ice they played underwater soccer. He didn’t mention alcohol, but I can only imagine those big Vikings coming up periodically to down goblets of ale between points.

It’s all relative. Those replies remind me how good we have it here where we whine about weather that drops a little below freezing. But there’s a deeper level. A lot of things we experience as discomfort or as an inconvenience can be pretty enjoyable once you shift your mindset. With the right clothes almost any cold is comfortable. Or if you shift your mind further you can redefine what “comfortable” is. An older gentleman that many of you know runs every day on the seawall early in the morning. He is always wearing shorts no matter what the temperature. I passed him early one of those cold mornings. As I passed I thought to myself that he must be suffering. They he gave his usual smile and wave and continued his slow, steady pace down the wall looking the farthest thing from cold or uncomfortable as possible.

I guess it’s all in how you look at it.

Cold Winter Days

I had a suggestion from a friend this week to write about how we deal with the cold water and air while working in the beach environment. It’s an interesting topic since even when we’re building towers, working on signage, or even working in the office we have to be ready at a moment’s notice to enter the water, potentially for prolonged periods, if an emergency drops.

The water last week dropped into the 40’s, which is no joke. Water in the 40’s can kill you pretty quickly if you are not prepared and don’t know what you’re doing. For this reason, we buy our full time staff good wetsuits that they keep handy at all times. Few people could function for more than a few minutes in 48 degree water without a decent wetsuit.

There’s a misconception that all you have to do is pop on a wetsuit and you’re good in any temperature of water. This isn’t at all true and there are several variables that go into effect when you’re doing rescue work in cold water, such as body mass, how accustomed you are to the cold, etc. Even so, probably the most important thing is having the right wetsuit for both the air/water temperature, duration, and for the activity. But even with the right suit, the first thing that happens when you jump in is freezing cold water slips into the suit, taking your breath away. If you don’t know what happens next you may panic. Fortunately, after just a few minutes that water in your suit is heated by your body and forms a thin layer of water between your skin and the suit. This layer of water acts as insulation and actually keeps you warm despite the cold water outside the suit, and to a more limited extent against cold wind above the water.

For example if you’re going scuba diving in 50 degree water you will need a very thick wetsuit, maybe 6 millimeters thick with boots, gloves, and a hood. In that same water temperature, for a strenuous rescue or swim session taking 45 minutes or less you’d want more flexibility in your suit and you’d be generating a great deal more body heat, so you might be happy with something that is only 3 millimeters thick. Some suits are designed for swimming with flexible areas around the shoulders and others are better for surfing with areas around the hips that are more flexible. But all are way better than just jumping in!

Originally wetsuits were made of rubber and designed by a west coast aerospace engineer (who was a surfer) for the military. But soon after the use of neoprene with its flexibility and closed cells trapping air inside the material made it affordable and practical for surfers and lifeguards and later for all types of water sports enthusiasts.

As we continue to see more beach use during the cold months we’d be lost without wetsuits to help us protect increasing numbers of beach users.

Lyle Gun

It was a moonless bitter cold night as the hooded figure walked along the beachfront. His long coat swirled around him as the icy rain and wind whipped through his clothes despite his efforts to keep them wrapped around his thin body. He held his lantern to the side so as not to hamper his ability to scan the ocean for lights. He still had a few miles to walk before he reached the turnaround point, where he would meet another man in a small warming hut. They would spend some time chatting and exchange tokens, so each could show their station master proof that they’d made the grueling trek.

Suddenly he noticed the thing that every Lifesaver Man dreads and at the same time hopes for. He spotted a light offshore that moved back and forth. To the untrained eye it would look innocuous, but he recognized what it was immediately. A ship was grounded and getting pounded by waves. He ran to the area and saw the size of the ship, which gave him an idea of how many passengers there were. He signaled with his light, and then ran the whole way back to the station. The station master sounded the alarm and the crew scrambled a response. It was too rough and windy to think about launching the rescue boat, but the ship was close enough to shore to bring the “Lyle Gun”, which was essentially a small cannon. They hooked a team of donkeys to the cannon and went as fast as possible.

When the crew arrived, they went through a practiced procedure that involved firing the cannon at the ship with a weighted object tied to a light line. This line was used to connect a heavier line to a sand anchor. Using a simple but ingenious pulley system they were able to send a “Bosun’s” chair back and forth on the heavier line. Pulling one person at a time across the gap between the ship that was being battered to a pulp to the shore took hours for the team. Once they had everyone on shore, most of the survivors and a few of the rescuers could hardly function and had to be carried to the station by the team of donkeys on a cart. From there the families of the Lifesaver Men, who lived in a tiny settlement adjacent to the station cared for them until they recovered.

The first lifeguards in Galveston were men like these. The US Lifesaving Service had a station at the San Luis Pass that was established in 1875. Eventually, with the advent of the industrial revolution, a leisure class, and recreational swimming, it split into the Red Cross and the US Coast Guard.

I can’t imagine how hard a life these brave men led. They worked under the most extreme conditions and displayed incredible bravery. But the same spirit exists in the men and women that protect Galveston and our nation’s beaches today.

Botswana

Since 1983 I’ve missed one summer of lifeguarding in Galveston. That summer I missed was because after college I took a job teaching on a one year contract in Botswana, Africa and traveled at the end of my contract for about 9 months.

My teaching job was in a small mining community on the edge of the Kalahari Desert. Even living in the desert I thought a lot about when I’d get to return to Galveston and work on the beach and tried to stay in shape. At first I’d run on the cattle trails through the hilly rocky terrain. I ended up not doing too much of that for two reasons. One was that it was rude to pass an older person without running through some rather lengthy introductions including asking how they woke up in the morning and telling them how you woke up (“I woke up nicely”). The second was that there were a number of dangerous animals once you got out in the country including lions, elephants, black and green mambas, and several kinds of cobras. I resorted to jumping rope or running on my laundry in the bathtub to wash clothes.

Finally I realized that my school , which was on the edge of the village, was near a sports club that had a weird small round swimming pool. The pool wasn’t very big, but I made friends with a man called Lux who would let me in when no one was in the pool so I could swim laps. I think I figured out that it took 100 laps to make a mile, but it was better than having to stop every 5 minutes to chat or running into something life threatening. The only scary thing was this group of baboons would come down from a nearby hill and watch me and point at me like I was crazy.

Sometimes I’d go for the weekend to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, which was the nearest big city. It was a tough trip involving a money exchange with some women of the Shona ethnic group under this tree, a border crossing, and about 4 hours of hitchhiking. But a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers from the states would go to this campsite and I’d get my fill of American culture. There was also a really beautiful 50 meter public swimming pools near the campsite. That was pretty amazing.

Once at that pool a guy was swimming laps in the lane next to me. Ocean lifeguards can spot each other in various ways, but I knew he was a guard by the way he swam. He was looking up every few strokes and had a really distinctive open water stroke. He also stopped periodically and checked on this group of unaccompanied kids playing across the pool. Before I could say anything he stopped me and said, “Where do you guard?”.

Turned out he was a guard in Florida who was traveling during his off time. Go figure!

Beach Front Improvements

As a teenager, when I had free time one of my favorite things to do was ride my bike on the seawall. In the late 70’s and early 80’s the beach was a big deal. Everyone I knew would ride bikes or hang out up there. Lifeguards and surfers ruled the day.

As you’d ride along the wall you’d see pockets of people you knew sitting in the shade on benches that were part of planter boxes filled with palm trees. You’d stop and talk, then ride on to the next group. You’d run into friends on their bikes and ride with them for awhile. On Sundays all the high school sororities would haze their pledges and make them paint their faces, sing songs, crack eggs in each other’s hair and generally entertain the crowd that would always gather. Public bathrooms were spaced periodically along the way as well. On days with surf I’d ride to my favorite spot with my board tucked under my arm and check out other spots on the way.

Part of the popularity of the beach during those years was a piece of a bigger puzzle related to the economy, trends in recreational activity, and a natural pendulum swing that happens with all kinds of cultural relationships, sports, popularity of specific things at a given time, etc. But a big part was because the environment was so nice up there. It was safe and cared for by the city and county. Once it was used by some, they attracted many.

Almost 40 years went by without any improvements to the beach front. The seawall itself was maintained but economic times and political priorities changed. We are lucky to have a beach because we still had beach related tourism, but it wasn’t what it could be.

And suddenly there’s been a shift. Starting maybe a decade ago there began to be a groundswell of awareness that people have way more options for recreation than they did back in the day and we need to work to keep our tourist economy healthy. A good product attracts repeat customers more than anything else. Things started changing. I have to take my hat off to our leaders in the City of Galveston, Park Board of Trustees, County, and other governmental bodies for what’s happening and what has already happened on the beach front currently.

As you drive down the seawall, you now see first class restrooms and landscaping being installed. But you also see giant wide beaches extending way farther than ever before, tasteful lighting, crossovers in key areas, and a process where tourists contribute to continued maintenance, and more to come.

According to a study commissioned a few years back by the Park Board, each dollar you put into the beach for improvements, protection, sand nourishment, etc. brings 7 back to the community. It’s so wonderful to see our leaders planning for our future instead of reacting to whatever the crisis at hand is. And it’s encouraging to see a community taking care of a resource that provides us so much in return.

 

10th Anniversary of the Biggest Storm

I still remember how the water felt as I slogged down 16th street heading into the biting wind. How the grit had gotten in my water shoes and how saturated my skin felt after several hours in and out of the grimy water. The fear in my stomach as a transformer blew close by. Wondering  if the electricity could travel through the water to me. Trying to breathe and see through the thick smoke coming off of the huge fire burning at the Yacht Basin.

It seems like yesterday that I felt the tiny boy’s hand in mine as I held on to he and his sister while walking chest deep in the grime next to their mom and pulling a rescue board piled with another sibling and a few belongings that they begged to bring along. Bringing them to high ground at Broadway and piling them into a waiting police car that would take them to the emergency shelter at Ball High school. Taking a moment to watch them drive off and grab an energy bar before heading to the next group a few blocks away.

Those of us that went through Hurricane Ike, and more recently through Hurricane Harvey, have memories like this ingrained into us that probably will never leave. It’s hard to believe that we’ve had another major event as we approach the 10th anniversary of the biggest storm that anyone alive remembers here.

A few years after Ike we had a city meeting to recap and use lessons learned to prepare for the next big event. As we went through the details it struck me how much better each group was prepared as a result of Ike and of what we’ve seen happen when other storms affected communities.  I also noticed how many new faces were in the room as opposed to the previous years. Charlie Kelly, who was the Director of the Emergency Operations for Galveston at the time, mentioned his fear that all the event memory would be lost as people who went through the storm moved on. I’m sure lots were thinking the same thing in that room. The nice thing is that each group’s emergency action plan is much more comprehensive than what we had before. Recently we went through the exercise of revamping our hurricane response plan for the Park Board. We’re trying to make it not only a document that is actually useful for all phases of a disaster, but something that will keep institutional memory alive for our successors.

In life guarding we train to eliminating variables that can mess you up during a rescue by practicing them until your body remembers even when your brain doesn’t. If you practice and internalize all the things you can control in advance, you are better able to handle the inevitable wrinkles that arise. Rescues, like hurricanes, never go according to plan. Best to be as prepared as possible so less is left to do on the fly. What works for organizations works in each of our personal homes and lives as well.

Water Safety

This week has been a great example of why Galveston in the fall is such a great combination. The water still hovers just over 70 degrees and the days have been beautiful. We still run patrol vehicles and are scheduled to do that until December 1st, at which time we’ll focus on rebuilding lifeguard towers, repairing equipment, replacing signs and rescue boxes that need it, and a thousand other small things we need to do to prepare for the next season. Of course, if this type of weather comes back around, we’ll divert our resources back up to the beach front to make sure everyone is OK. We also continue to respond to emergency calls day or night just as we do the rest of the year, so if you need us for something urgent just dial 911.

We responded with our partners in the police, fire, and EMS to a pool incident earlier this week. That call reminded me that, although we specialize in beach and surf lifesaving, there is a broader world of water safety. At times we are so preoccupied with our primary concern of rip currents and other beach related issues that we neglect to stress the importance of some very basic safety advice.

As the president of the United States Lifesaving Organization, which specializes in open water lifeguarding, one of my duties is to sit on the board of a really wonderful group called “Water Safety USA” www.watersafetyusa.org . Water Safety USA is a roundtable of longstanding national nonprofit and governmental organizations with a strong record of providing drowning prevention and water safety programs, including public education. Part of our mission is to tease out commonalities in water safety messaging between the 14 members and encourage them to put out information the same way. That way the public will not receive so many similar messages that are presented different ways. Unified messaging is much more effective and hopefully more likely to stay in people’s minds.

At this point there are two main messages Water Safety USA promotes. The first is “Water Safety- Its Learning to Swim and So Much More”. The importance of learning to swim is fairly obvious, but the idea is part of a larger framework of skills and information that keep you safe when in or around the water. The second is “Designate a Water Watcher, Supervision Could Save a Life”. The idea here is that when kids are swimming there should be an older responsible person whose sole responsibility is to watch them and make sure they’re safe. The third message will be released in the spring and has to do with the use of life jackets when in or around the water.

Remember that backyard pools and other bodies of water claim many more lives each year than the beach. And winter does not mean that you can drop your guard. Supervision, barrier devices, learning to swim, etc. are key components to making sure water is what it should be- something to enjoy safely.

Offshore Winds

If there’s one thing lifeguards hate on an offshore wind day is an emergency where a person is being blown out. When the wind blows offshore it creates a unique set of circumstances that can potentially be lethal. This is mostly a danger during the spring and fall when repeated frontal systems pass across the Texas coast. When someone is blown offshore on a floating object they can quickly realize that it gets rougher the farther from the shoreline you drift. Short period, choppy surf pushing away from the beach is almost impossible to swim or paddle against. This is why we don’t permit inflatable objects, which act like sails, in the water when wind blows from the north.

Dusk is the absolute worst time to get a call like this. The wind and waves can carry a person beyond your field of vision really quickly. Remember looking out to sea while standing at sea level only enables you to see 3 miles or so before a floating object disappears beyond the curvature of the earth. If there are waves or chop this distance is lessened. Once a person disappears over the horizon the chances of finding him/her drop. Add low light to the equation and the chances drop significantly. In this scenario, finding someone using a boat is like looking for a needle in a haystack. This is why we move so quickly on these calls and try to keep an eye on the victim, or at least the “last seen point”, until we can launch a jet ski. We’ve saved a number of people by making an educated guess based on wind and current when we had at least a last seen point.

A few years ago a couple of lifeguards were out training in our surf boat on a strong off-shore wind day. A surf boat is essentially a two person row boat with a closed bottom and big holes in the sides that allow wave water to run out. They were only about 50 yards from shore when one lost an oar and decided to swim in and get help. The other couldn’t maintain solo against the wind and as he got farther off shore the water got choppier and the wind increased. By the time we got a jet ski into the water, we could no longer see him. It took an hour search following the direction of the wind to find him and another half hour to make it back to shore. We had just decided to call for a Coast Guard Helicopter when we spotted the boat on the horizon. He had drifted about 5 miles by then. We were lucky on that one, but it shows how quickly things can go bad on those days.

Now that we are getting frontal systems be sure and keep a close eye on the wind direction. Be sure you stay really close to shore when the north wind blows and be extra careful about paddling out on anything that floats.

Highlights of 2017

Every year when the season slows down we review our season to see how we did. I enjoy the process because it helps show how the Beach Patrol is an entire safety and educational network, as opposed to merely the lifeguard service for the city of Galveston.  The process also helps target areas we can improve on next season. Awfully proud of our crew for all the work that went into these accomplishments! Here are a few of the highlights:

  • Maintained and posted annual statistics with the United States Lifesaving Association. We use these to target areas for improvement and to help show what we do. This year we performed 124,556 preventions, 123 rescues, 160 lost children reunited with families, 1,480 medical responses, and 2,842 enforcement actions
  • Maintained 32 lifeguard towers on beach for the 7 month season
  • Daily patrols vehicles scheduled on the west end from Memorial – Labor Day. We had staffing issues this year that were a challenge, but we hit this goal for the most part
  • Patrolled San Luis Pass with a UTV on weekends from Memorial – Labor Day weekends. They focused on enforcement of our “no swimming” ordinance in the dangerous areas
  • Revised Policy and Procedure manual, a task we do each season to keep us current, efficient, and focused
  • More than doubled last year’s goal by providing talks to 25,900 kids in our School Water Safety Outreach Program.
  • Facilitated the development, training and growth of Texas coastal lifeguarding programs by providing a train-the-trainer course to 12 Beach Patrol managers from South Padre, Cameron County, Corpus Christi, and Port Aransas Beach Patrols
  • At least Beach Patrol representative served the community on Galveston College L.E. Academy board, Better Parks of Galveston, Children’s Museum, and the Galveston Marine Response team.
  • Provided a Basic Water Rescue course for 12 surf instructors and all of the Galveston Fire Department.
  • Increase Social Media footprint. We increased followers from 4,568 to 6,167 from 2016 to 2017, a 26% increase
  • Added movie promo and mass text campaigns to our recruiting efforts
  • Included tourist ambassador training in all three of our Lifeguard Academies.
  • Maintained prominent positions in national and international organizations (Davis- President of United States Lifesaving Association (USLA), Secretary General Americas Region of International Lifesaving Association; Pryor- Chair of USLA Certification Committee, President of Gulf Region of USLA), Harrison on USLA Textbook Revision Committee and Vice Chair of Heroic Acts Committee
  • Conducted an annual review of Park Board Disaster Response Plan
  • Initiate a community based education program called “Wave Watchers”. 11 trained, over 600 hours service completed by volunteers
  • Helped facilitate “Senior Beach Walk” program. Seniors completed more than 20 walks averaging about 7 individuals per walk
  • Junior Lifeguard Program- Increased participants from 104 to 114, 8% inc
  • Emergency Response 24/7/365 and vehicle patrols 10 months out of the year
  • Sent Lifeguard and Jr Guard team of 22 to nationals. Juniors had 15 top 12 finishes. Lifeguard team had 15 top 10 finishes and won 10 medals.
  • Hurricane Harvey- 4 teams helped make 127 urban flood rescues