Short of razor wire at the water line, I don't think anything is going to keep some of these folks out of the water.
Just like speed limit signs, people just ignore them.
Just like speed limit signs, people just ignore them.
Death today at Seagrove Beach
- Thread starter ember
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I think that more adults drown every year than children at our beaches.
I stand with my offer to donate my design services if I can help. Just let me know.
Even one saved life is worth it.
I stand with my offer to donate my design services if I can help. Just let me know.
Even one saved life is worth it.
I agree, except that speeding endangers others. Swimming in dangerous waters only endangers yourself.
I'm usually a compassionate person, but I don't think that folks over the age of 18 should be ticked or rescued when reds are flying. Warn them to get out and enforce the part about swimming at your own risk. Lifeguards should not be asked to risk their lives over someone else's willful disregard of dangerous conditions. Let natural selection do its work.
As for the parents who allow their children to swim (or jaywalk!), they shouldn't be ticketed; they should be arrested for child endangerment. :angry:
That was my thinking too. We're not all stopping the spring breakers in the stores to tell them how dangerous drinking and driving is while they're here . There are safety campaigns for that, yes. There are safety campaigns here too for beach safety. Maybe they should be improved or updated. There are warnings everywhere though, and at some point individual responsibility should be left to the individual.
More and more I am feeling that there is more than enough signage etc. to create awareness - folks are just not cooperating/following the rules.
Like I said- you can't often save someone from themself.
I'm all for rescuing them because I feel like it's the right thing to do. However, I'd love to see them take a page from what some of the SOs Up North do during ice fishing season, and say that you will be billed for the full cost of rescue if a lifeguard, firefighter, or LEO goes in after you on a double red day, and that the minimum bill you will receive for services is high enough to count, say starting at $2500 or something like that.
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I like the idea of billing them, but there is more at stake here than money for services rendered. I was a lifeguard in my previous life for about a decade, and I worked at pools, waterparks, a large lake in Georgia, and a small lake in central Florida.
When someone is drowning, it is automatically a dangerous situation, but most of the time it's less dangerous for the rescuer than it is for the rescue-ee. I was in a couple of situations where there were exceptions to that--sudden electrical storms where small boats (catamarans, paddleboats) were stranded on the lake and had to be pulled in (in central Florida, add that to Gator-inhabited water,) disentangling stranded swimmers from a rapids-type water slide while other swimmers are still coming down on you, intoxicated and belligerent swimmers, a chlorine leak at a pool, etc.
But I was never a beach lifeguard, and this ain't Baywatch. A wave pool can be turned off (and was turned off many times when swimmers got in trouble.) But an undertow or rip tide that can carry one swimmer away can carry a rescuer away, too. I do not think it's the right thing to send some kid who's making less than he would at Starbucks to risk his life. Greenroomsurfer is good about rescuing folks, too, and I'm going to be mighty upset when he tears his back up, gets whacked in the head by a drunk and drowns, gets bitten by a shark, etc. for his trouble. It's like telling someone to evacuate for a flood or hurricane--if you choose to stay, you can't expect someone to risk life and limb trying to save you.
True, but we'll just be biatching come February.
You love snowbirds, and you know it
Actually now that I don't work with them they don't have nearly the bone chilling, grey hair causing, effect they used to.
P.S. I'm stopping by for my free blood sugar monitor. ;-)
Unless the rescuer drowns saving the first victim, as what usually happens. That's when bystanders become victims because of selfless thinking people.