Posted on 04/08/2022 12:51:10 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Warm weather attracts hundreds of beach-goers to the Central Coast to cool off in the Monterey Bay.
Lifeguards are putting out the usual warnings when entering the water but there are also some hazards on beaches that they're warning the public about.
Aaron Cummings of San Jose beat the traffic over Highway 17 to escape the heat on Thursday.
"I'm out early. No fog, so we knew it was going to be hot today that's why we headed over here," Cummings said.
Hundreds of people fill beaches throughout Santa Cruz County with the same plan to cool down. There are the usual warning to look out for hazardous ocean conditions.
"Rip currents, big wave conditions they're not used to or comfortable with," said Byran Kine, State Parks Peace Officer-Lifeguard.
The Santa Cruz Fire Department has a roving patrol of two lifeguards.
They're checking the most popular beach spots. The priority is safety and prevention but they can call in more crews if needed.
"Generally, one of us will be on the radio getting more resources coming. We are a division of the fire department but we work closely with the rescue swimmers or the engine. We'll have an ambulance coming, generally depending on the type of rescue," said Anaiis Nysether, Santa Cruz Fire Lifeguard.
Not all emergencies are out in the ocean, some are right on the beach. Playing in the sand is a tradition at any beach.
"I was digging right alongside my daughter just now. I stayed right by her. Our goal was just to make a small pool like about, yay high," said, Lisa Shields of Core Madera.
But some take digging too deep.
At Sunset State Beach on Tuesday, a child digging a hole got trapped by sand. Three weeks earlier, a similar incident happened at Seabright State Beach. Both children were rescued but sometimes they don' always play out that way.
State lifeguards train for these types of incidents.
"As we get on scene, we're going to ask how big the person is. How deep the hole was when the person was in relation to the hole. What their orientation is with their head down or head up? So we can get to that airwave the fastest," Kane said.
If you're going to dig on the beach, dig no deeper than the knee-deep of the smallest person in your group. Keep in mind, no tunneling, no digging into a sand embankment, and if you must dig, fill it in afterward.
Cue the Far Side cartoon:
“Ok, Billy...Tide’s Coming in now...Dig me out, Billy! Billy, I don’t want to get angry now....”
We have had a few sad incidents here like that over the years.
One was a boy dug a ‘cave’ into a sand dune that collapsed upon him.................
I know this beach.
Far more likely to be stuck by a discarded hypodermic needle than anything.
And what of the parents? Is it not their job to make sure their kid isn’t buried alive?
No mention of those, though.
The media used to hire editors.
Wait, what? Sunset State Beach or Seabright? I can't imagine seeing a hypodermic at either of those beaches, but even more so Sunset. The beach in front of the boardwalk is the dirtiest, but even there I never seen anything suggesting a hypodermic.
The beach in front of the boardwalk is the dirtiest, but even there I never seen anything suggesting a hypodermic. But sometimes homeless people do stay there.
Who could spell Corte Madera.
Now all they have is "fact checkers".
And ones who look for ways to make everything about race.
We used to play in gullies that are abundant in south-eastern Colorado. We had one which carved a “canyon” straight through the side of a washout to the other side which emptied into a field. It was just tall enough for us to walk through standing and just wide enough to go through sideways. There was a bell in the middle where several of us could hunker down. Keep in mind we were around 10 - 12 years old, so a grown adult would have had trouble getting through there. On top of the canyon was about ten feet of dirt... Not uncommon for kids to be running around up top while others were in the “hideout” down below. When my dad found out about it, he grabbed the neighbor and they went down there and had no problem caving in our hideout with a half stick of boom boom n a three foot hole they dug with post hole diggers. He darn near cried when we showed him where we were playing. Could have killed at least two of us (no one wanted to go in alone) and as many as a half-dozen neighborhood kids. Scary.
LOL!!! thank you...
I stopped believing im Santa Cruz.
Puff piece to justify 200k lifeguard salary?
My wife's coworker's brother was killed after dirt fell in on him as he and his friends dug into a big pile of dirt and it caved in on him. I guess you were lucky.
“Far more likely to be stuck by a discarded hypodermic needle than anything.”
Seriously massive CRINGE!
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