SEA BRIGHT – An additional 60 hours of training will provide better prepared lifeguards and create a safer environment for those swimming at the public beaches and at local beach clubs this summer season.
“That is the idea,” said Mike Hudson, captain of the Sea Bright Ocean Rescue, the lifeguard squad for the municipality beach.
“It’s about, obviously, safety, prevention and response,” Hudson continued, explaining the program was enacted this year to better train the guards.
What initially sparked the conversations, LoBiondo explained, was the drowning of an 18-year-old man off a stretch of unprotected beach in the borough last August.
All seven of the borough private beach clubs have sent members of their lifeguard teams to participate and bring back what they learned to instruct other team members; the municipal lifeguards are also participating, according to Hudson.
The idea, LoBiondo explained, was to create a coordinated system for all of the lifeguards, all having the same skills, utilizing the same hand signals. “To have us all on the same page,” he said.
summer, offering advance training to secure swimmer safety.
That association was established in 1996 in Hawaii as a lifesaving educational organization that works with other groups to come up with instructional programs for ocean rescue, cardio-pulmonary and surf safety skills, according to the organization’s website.
On Wednesday, July 13, about 23 guards, ranging in ages 16 to 28, participated in the last leg of the 60-hour training. As the daytime beach crowd dissipated given the strong wind, overcast sky, rain and dropping temperatures, the collection of guards drilled by doing a total 400-meter run-swim-run; which was followed by a 500-meter run along the beach.
Another exercise included such rescue efforts as simulating saving a submerged swimmer; another where they attempted to handle a panicked swimmer; and one that Hudson labeled a “no-win scenario” where a guard attempts to save two distressed swimmers. These exercises are intended to help hone the guards’ skills and judgments in stressful situations, Hudson said.
Hudson acknowledged that a solo rescue of a panicked swimmer really amounts to “high risk, low probability,” situation for guards, who rarely find themselves in such a situation, since assistance is almost always available.
“It represents the highest risk for the lifeguard, but it doesn’t happen that often,” he explained. “A lifeguard on the Jersey Shore may experience it once in their career,” he suspected, but it’s worthwhile training should the situation arise.
“I think we’ve all seen an increase in skill and preparedness,” said Jonathan Decelle.
Decelle, a Rumson resident, is working his second summer as a Sea Bright public beach guard. And this program, he believed, has instilled more confidence in both the guards and beach patrons, who are more comfortable swimming in areas with better-trained safety personnel.
“These are very much proven” exercises, said Hudson, who has used these training measures elsewhere.
Hudson has been Sea Bright’s captain for two summers and has worked here for three years. He’s a career lifeguard/paramedic who said he has worked in San Diego, California, Panama City, Florida, and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. On top of that experience, Hudson said he had coordinated safety efforts for the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” programing.
