Beach Patrol Saves Lives in Turbulent Ocean

By Buffy Maguire

With the arrival of Indian Summer during September, Ocean Beach was packed with visitors who rushed past signs warning, "People swimming and wading have drowned here," and proceeded to jump into the ocean to cool off.
It's the Beach Patrol's task to educate and protect the public on the beaches and they made the difference between life and death in two instances in September and proved critical in four other rescues at Ocean Beach.
Donning red caps, gray sweatshirts and blue sweatpants for easy access to their swim trunks, the six Beach Patrol lifeguards, Sean Scallan, Lewis Rutherfurd, Jason Arrow, Eric Robles, Scott Palmer and Tyron Shapiro, are perched and ready to prevent impending disaster.
"Busy, busy days come along randomly," said Rutherfurd, who estimates that on sunny days more than 50,000 people visit Ocean Beach.
With one eye on the ocean and its visitors, they drive up and down the beach in white Ford Broncos listening to the dispatch radio, consulting tide books, looking through binoculars and working closely with the Presidio Fire Department, Police Marine Rescue, Park Rangers and the Coast Guard.
"On Labor Day I rescued an 11-year-old boy who was waist deep at Kelly's Cove when a wave broke and sucked him out within seconds," Rutherfurd said. "People were pointing and I grabbed my board and brought him to shore. There was heavy surf and he definitely wouldn't have made it back to shore on his own."
The minor was from San Lorenzo and sustained no injuries.
On Sept. 9, Lifeguard Tyron Shapiro pulled up to Kelly's Cove after being waved down. A 65-year-old man had been pulled out 80 yards and was stuck on a rock inside a rip current with heavy surf.
"My first response was to grab my paddle board and fins and nylon harness attached to my foam buoy. It was difficult to clip him. He was moaning and unable to speak, delirious and on the brink of unconsciousness, too tired to talk," he said.
"I pulled him in just as a wave crashed on the rocks. It was my most dramatic rescue and I was spent. I used all my energy and my lungs were burning. September's rip currents and heavy surf makes rescues much more difficult. In one or two more minutes he would not have made it," Shapiro said.
On Sept. 15, a female surfer fell off her surfboard and hit the bottom of the ocean floor.
"It looked like she had a broken back so we c-spined her and the fire department met us. In the end, she had a fractured vertebrae," Rutherford recalled.
Additionally, there were two head injuries and one laceration to a surfer who was cut with a fin.
Since the Beach Patrol is the first on the scene at a wide range of incidents varying in severity, preparedness is pivotal. As a result, they carry first aid supplies and oxygen in addition to a surfboard, wet suit, c-spine board and rescue ropes.
The Beach Patrol was established after El Nino in 1998, when seven people drowned at Ocean Beach. The patrol's beat includes Baker Beach, China Beach, Land's End and Fort Funston.
To date, the Beach Patrol has a seasonal schedule from April to November, although they have been called in for rescues during the current off-season.
"In September, October and November, when the surf gets good, the waves start picking up and the weather is sunny, we get the inner city and Bay Area people who don't know the dangers of the ocean," said Scallan, the first lifeguard the National Park Service hired.
The Beach Patrol's philosophy is to emphasize prevention, so in addition to stellar swimming, surfing and first aid skills, lifeguards also need good people skills.
"We've talked to hundreds of people, advising them of the conditions. There's no way to quantify how many people's lives we could have possibly saved by just talking to the public about the dangers," Rutherfurd said.
In fact, since the lifeguards began combing the beach, there has only been one drowning - and it was during the Beach Patrol's off-season.