By JOSEPH KELLARD
After three men drowned in the ocean within 24 hours when lifeguards were off duty last weekend, one question Gillespie kept hearing is, Why doesn't Long Beach extend lifeguard duty an hour or two past the usual 6 p.m. quitting time, when most drownings occur?
Long Beach has some 140 full- and part-time lifeguards, but that total still represents a staffing shortage, a problem affecting beaches and pools from Long Island to New Jersey. Gillespie answered the question for the Herald with one of his own: 'If we could hire 50 more lifeguards, it would be great, but where would we get them?'
Long Beach has high standards for lifeguards, and too many aspiring rescuers fail to meet them, Gillespie said. 'First, it's a job in which you are saving lives, so it's a lot of work to become a lifeguard,' he explained, 'and nowadays it's easier for a lot of kids to go to a computer or play video games than it is to go on the beach and work.'
Moreover, since the job is seasonal, few older, experienced lifeguards are available beyond those who are teachers and are off for the summer.
But Roy Lester, a veteran lifeguard who worked at Jones Beach, believes the city can nevertheless find a way to extend lifeguard duty to at least 7 p.m. 'It's really not that difficult to stagger lifeguards to get that extra hour,' Lester said.
Lt. Bruce Meyer, a Long Beach Police Department spokesman, said that lifeguards are already working nine-hour shifts. 'We have to be concerned about their welfare,' Meyer said. 'We then run the risk of them not getting much rest and becoming a liability to themselves and swimmers.'
A major reason swimmers drown after lifeguards leave the beach, Gillespie said, is that most are out-of-towners, mainly from Queens, and are unfamiliar with the dangers of the ocean. 'Our kids in Long Beach are water-smart because they grew up around water, and just about all of them know how to swim,' said Gillespie, adding that it has been five years or more since a Long Beach resident drowned in the ocean.
Lester, who is also a Long Beach school board trustee, noted that more families seem to be heading to the beach an hour or two before sunset ' after lifeguard hours ' because more parents are working these days. 'There's more double-income families now and people are working more hours,' he explained. 'There used to be a lot more time to go down to the beach. This just doesn't happen anymore. And people can't afford more elaborate vacations anymore, so they stay local and come down to Long Beach more.'
Gillespie said it is difficult to assess how many people come to the beach after 6 p.m. because they can't afford a daily $10 beach pass, and how many simply prefer a less crowded beach when the sun is setting. He said Long Beach differs from other beaches in that anyone can walk onto the beach until 11 p.m., while there are gates that are locked by dark at Lido, Point Lookout and Jones Beach.
Mike Deery, a Town of Hempstead spokesman, said the beaches at Lido and Point Lookout open at 7 a.m., and people can start swimming at 10 a.m., when lifeguards come on duty, and remain in the water until 6 p.m. 'And in particularly rough surf conditions or when the weather is extremely hot, the lifeguards do stay longer,' Deery emphasized.
After 6 p.m., between four and eight lifeguards patrol the beach in ATVs and other vehicles for another hour, after which public safety officers patrol and clear the beaches and parking lots until dark, when they lock the gates.
At Jones Beach, a state-run park, lifeguards are on duty from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends.
In Long Beach, after lifeguards come down off their chairs at 6 p.m., the Emergency Response Unit, which consists of five lifeguards and one EMT, remain at lifeguard headquarters on National Boulevard until 8 p.m., and a police officer patrols the beach in an SUV or on an ATV and orders straggling swimmers from the water. 'But in that situation,' Gillespie said, 'it becomes an issue of life saving instead of life guarding.'
Lester said that concentrating lifeguards at National Boulevard is mostly ineffective if a swimmer is drowning many blocks away. 'When someone is in trouble, you just don't have the time to relay the message to headquarters to have someone come down,' Lester said. 'People can drown within 30 seconds.'
Last Saturday, a 29-year-old Wantagh man drowned in the ocean at Lindell Boulevard after 6 p.m., five blocks from lifeguard headquarters, and while four rescuers responded to the scene, they were too late to save him. 'He took a lot of water and he did have a pulse when he came out of the water, but to no avail,' Gillespie said.
Morning drownings, before lifeguards start their shifts at 9 a.m., are rare. Lester, who is among Long Beach's early-bird swimmers, said most are either experienced swimmers or triathletes in training, and are better able to handle themselves in the ocean. Often, he added, those who drown do so later in the day, after engaging in a very different recreational activity.
'I'm not saying this is the case in these recent drownings,' Lester said, 'but oftentimes alcohol is involved with the night drownings. Forty years of experience in the ocean has taught me that alcohol is involved in a lot of accidents.'
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.
