rip current - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-29T00:04:56Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/rip+currentOn a mission to save: Lifeguards cooperate in attempting rescuehttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/on-a-mission-to-save-lifeguards-cooperate-in-attempting-rescue2013-07-03T18:00:00.000Z2013-07-03T18:00:00.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p style="text-align:center;"><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960452488,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960452488,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="538" alt="7960452488?profile=original" /></a></strong><em>Delray Beach Ocean Rescue personnel searched for the 17-year-old who drowned recently at Gulfstream Park. From left: Ocean Rescue Officers Raphael Costa and Kyle Stewart, Superintendent James Scala, Ocean Rescue Officers Justin Walton and Justin Rumbaugh and Lt. Luigi Pratt. <strong>Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
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<p style="text-align:left;"><strong>By Jane Smith</strong><br /> <br /> The scanner crackled: “Possible near drowning” in Gulf Stream. <br /> Delray Beach Fire-Rescue responded about 2:30 p.m. on that last Friday in May.<br /> Soon a battalion chief would interrupt a meeting to summon Ocean Rescue Superintendent James Scala to the beach. He was needed to lead the search for the missing swimmer.<br /> Rodelson Normil, 17, disappeared in the rough surf, in an unguarded area about a half-mile south of Gulfstream Park.<br /> Scala began to conduct the search in a methodical manner, using guidelines from the United States Lifesaving Association. His Ocean Rescue staff belongs to the group known for its high physical membership standards.<br /> First, Scala talked with Normil’s friend. <br /> “I needed to be certain he was in the water and where he went under,” Scala said. He had been part of two other searches where the missing swimmer was found to be alive — and on land. The exact place Normil was last seen determined a starting point for the search.<br /> After speaking with the friend, Scala saw the head of the rip current where Normil was last seen. Not a strong swimmer, the Boynton Beach teen likely panicked when the rip current pulled him away from the beach.<br /> Scala looked to the ocean to check the water’s visibility and the current direction. On May 31, the ocean was choppy, diminishing visibility to zero. The 10- to 15-mph winds from the east created perfect conditions for rip currents. <br /> Ocean Rescue staff would later call the conditions that day “the worst possible” for a search. <br /> Scala next organized his staff to do a grid search. He stayed on the beach, watching his team execute the search. He received periodic updates from his line leader, Justin Rumbaugh.<br /> He put down a marker on the beach, lining up with the spot where Normil was last seen in the ocean. Rumbaugh, with four years’ experience in Delray Beach, then reviewed the grid pattern with the other lifeguards. <br /> The line leader is picked usually because he can talk the loudest to his teammates in the ocean.<br /> The person also knows the USLA hand signals, such as when a guard swims 10 strokes underwater, resurfaces and touches his head: That means the guard is OK.<br /> The poor visibility forced the guards to swim close together when doing the search.<br /> The Ocean Rescue staff had to close one of its beaches to swimming when it sent two guards via an ATV to help with the search, about 3 miles north of the city’s beaches. The other guards who assisted the search in its early minutes were Justin Walton and Rafael Costa, both with two years’ full-time experience in Delray Beach. <br /> When Rumbaugh as the line leader told the guards where to turn, they realigned and swam perpendicular to the direction they were just swimming, using the same grid pattern. Then they switched and swam back in the opposite direction until they passed the point where Normil was last seen, about 250 feet out in the ocean. That way, every area was searched.<br /> “I am really proud of the staff,” Scala said. “Even when there was a break to review the search pattern and a beachgoer brought them some water to drink, no one took it. They just wanted to get back to searching for Normil.”<br /> Despite the precise, coordinated effort, the body of the young swimmer was not recovered.<br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960452885,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960452885,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="538" alt="7960452885?profile=original" /></a><em>Turbulent waves and poor visibility made the May 31 rescue efforts especially challenging. <strong>Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
<p><br /> <strong>Training and teamwork</strong><br /> Twice a year for a full month, Delray trains its lifeguards in the USLA search and recovery method, said Eric Feld, an operations supervisor. The guards train in the classroom and the ocean three to four times a week for one hour during that training month. <br /> In May, Ocean Rescue staff had just refreshed their search and recovery skills, he said. Ocean Rescue lifeguards also are emergency medical technicians, said Scala, who has worked at the city division for 10 years.<br /> The May 31 grid search was truly a multi-agency effort, he said.<br /> Delray Beach guards were joined by three from Palm Beach County Ocean Rescue. Mark Rodrick, a 15-year veteran with the county, came down from Ocean Inlet Park to help. Two guards, Cathy Conlin and Michael Soutter, arrived from nearby Gulfstream Park. Both have 29 years of lifeguarding experience.<br /> The poor visibility underwater made goggles useless, Scala said. The guards needed only flippers and buoy markers. When they could no longer feel the bottom, they dived under until they could and then resurfaced, looking back and lining themselves up with the team.<br /> Delray Beach later sent two more guards up to the search effort. They were Luigi Pratt with seven years’ experience and Kyle Stewart with more than two years’ experience as city lifeguards.<br /> “They executed the search and worked as a team. Scala said. “All that training pays off. … It was physically demanding.”<br /> Through an agreement with the town of Gulf Stream, Delray Beach Fire-Rescue handles the town’s emergency calls. Fire-Rescue was in charge of the call when it first went out as a missing swimmer, Capt. Curtis Jackson said.<br /> The department had its entire special ops unit, Fire Station 5 and a battalion chief on the beach, he said. Two of its paramedics, Tyler Adams and Mark Szrejter, aided Ocean Rescue in search, along with Phil Wotton, district captain with Palm Beach County Ocean Rescue.<br /> About 3:15 p.m., when the missing swimmer call became a search and recovery mission, the U.S. Coast Guard took control.<br /> It sent a helicopter from Miami, an 87-foot cutter from the Fort Pierce Inlet and a boat from the Lake Worth Inlet, according to Petty Officer Mark Barney.<br /> The helicopter had a four-person crew: two pilots, a swimmer and a mechanic. One pilot flew the helicopter in a rectangular spiral pattern while the three others visually searched their assigned quadrants, so that no area of the ocean was missed, Barney said.<br /> On an overcast day, the helicopter flies a few hundred feet above the ocean. The crew twice reported seeing something in the water that the Ocean Rescue lifeguards used to redirect their search.<br /> Unfortunately, they never found Normil.<br /> His body probably met with one of two outcomes.<br /> The littoral drift or longshore current comes close to the shore in that area of Florida, according to John Fletemeyer, a lifeguard turned sea turtle monitor and coastal researcher at Florida International University.<br /> “So possibly the teen’s body was carried up the coast,” he said.<br /> When a person drowns, his lungs empty, dropping the body to the ocean floor, he said. After a few days, it fills with gases and the body floats to the surface.<br /> The other possibility is even more grim: “The sharks [may have] got to it,” he said.<br /> Rip currents are the No. 1 problem at the beach, according to Fletemeyer. “One hundred fifty people die annually in rip currents, making them more serious than shark bites or lightning strikes,” he said. <br /> Fletemeyer and the other lifeguards said Normil’s disappearance serves as a cautionary reminder for ocean enthusiasts: Always swim near a lifeguard. </p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960453085,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960453085,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="538" alt="7960453085?profile=original" /></a> </p></div>South Palm Beach: New signage considered in wake of beach deathshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/south-palm-beach-new-signage2010-06-03T15:49:37.000Z2010-06-03T15:49:37.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">By Tim O’Meilia</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Conflicting locations given by scores of 911 callers to emergency dispatchers sent rescuers
to the wrong location, at first, of what became the accidental drowning of a
Georgia couple in a strong rip current behind a South Palm Beach condominium on
May 15.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Lantana police dispatchers, who handle South Palm Beach emergency calls, were told
people were struggling in the water anywhere from the Lantana public beach to
just south of the Lake Worth pier.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Despite the confusion, police arrived three minutes and fire-rescue trucks five minutes
after being dispatched.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">“From what I can see, the response time for us, Lantana and fire rescue were good,”
said South Palm Beach Police Chief Roger Crane.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">As a result of the confusion, though, town officials are considering affixing the
addresses of each condominium in 12-inch vinyl numbers on the concrete cap of
seawalls or on the beach stairs behind each condo so emergency callers and swimmers
can identify their location.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The first emergency call, from a woman on a cell phone, was answered by Manalapan
dispatch and then re-routed to Lantana. 911 calls from cell phones, unlike from
land lines, do not pinpoint the location of the caller, so dispatchers must
ask. They were told “on the beach.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">A South Palm Beach patrol car was dispatched at 9:32 a.m., according to Lantana
dispatch records, and first stopped at the Dune Deck, near the Lantana beach,
before being re-routed to the Mayfair House at 3590 S. Ocean Blvd., where the
drowning actually occurred.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Despite the delay, the police arrived at 9:35 a.m. and parked at the neighboring Palm
Beach Oceanfront Inn for easier access to the beach. Police at first brought
water rescue equipment to the beach, then returned for oxygen and a
defibrillator after they found that a man and a Lantana lifeguard where already
administering CPR.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">In addition, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office received a report of a boat
collision with three people in the water. That erroneous report might have been
prompted by an explosion in an FPL transformer just minutes before the
drownings.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue dispatched a rescue truck and an engine at 9:39 a.m.
to a vague location “between Ocean Avenue and Lake Worth Road.” That was later
changed to 3700 S. Ocean Blvd., also an incorrect address, according to a
fire-rescue report of the incident.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Fire-rescue arrived at the Mayfair at 9:44 a.m. and took over rescue operations. Although
South Palm Beach condos have private, unguarded beaches, lifeguards from the
Lantana public beach sprinted a quarter mile up the beach to give assistance.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">“It’s amazing they actually got where they were supposed to go,” South Palm Beach
Mayor Martin Millar said. “There was so much confusion about the location.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Eventually, numerous units from South Palm Beach, Lantana, the Sheriff’s Office,
fire-rescue and the town of Palm Beach responded to the calls.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The South Palm Beach Town Council discussed the drownings during its May 25 meeting
and asked Town Manager Rex Taylor to discuss with Palm Beach County and Lantana
the use of signs advising that the beaches are unguarded and larger warning
flags that could be seen north of the public beach.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:bold;">I</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">n other action,</span> the council:<br /> * approved, by
a 3-2 vote, moving the mayor and council comments from early in the agenda to
just before the closing comments from the public and limiting the mayor and
council to five minutes, unless the council approves more time. Millar said the
time limit was an infringement on freedom of speech. The council approved more
time for both Millar and Councilman Brian Merbler, who also opposed the change.<br />
* abolished unanimously the Board of Adjustment and transferred
its only power, to grant zoning variances, to the Planning Board. The Board of
Adjustment seldom met. .</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p></div>South Palm Beach: ‘What ifs’ haunt man who tried to save drowning swimmershttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/south-palm-beach-what-ifs2010-06-03T15:47:26.000Z2010-06-03T15:47:26.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960297264,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">By Tim O’Meilia</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">A week later, Harvey Kertzman is second-guessing himself.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">“What if I had gone downstairs a minute earlier? What if I had turned her on her
side? Should I have spun her around so her head was lower than her body? What
should I have done different?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">“It’ll be with me forever,” said Kertzman, 61, one of two men who pulled a drowning
middle-aged Georgia couple from the surf behind the Mayfair House in South Palm
Beach. Despite the men’s efforts to administer CPR, the couple died in the May
15 incident.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Not even efforts by Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue paramedics could revive the
couple. Denis Agelatos, 70, and his wife, Barbara, 57, were pronounced dead at
JFK Medical Center in Atlantis. From Albany, Ga., they were visiting relatives.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The Agelatos were among the few on the beach that Saturday morning. A stiff east
wind, strong surf and a hidden rip current kept most out of the water. Except
Barbara Agelatos.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Kertzman saw her several times from the eighth-floor kitchen window in his father’s
condominium. He owns a trucking company and a gasoline station in Quincy, Mass.
He has been staying with his 90-year-old father since his mother died recently.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">“It’s not a swimming day,” he said he thought as he ate breakfast. “Then I saw her with a second person, a
man. They looked like they were having fun.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">He went on: “I saw her doing a side stroke with her head under water. That didn’t look right.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Quickly her companion is holding her in his arms outstretched. Kertzman guesses they
are 65 feet off shore, in six to eight feet of water, just beyond the
submerged, rocky remnants of old A1A, long reclaimed by the Atlantic Ocean.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Kertzman ran for the elevator and told his dad to call 911. He called the emergency
number himself, giving the Mayfair House address. The Lantana police
dispatcher, which handles 911 calls for South Palm Beach, received dozens of
calls on the drowning, but many gave conflicting addresses, sending emergency
responders to several wrong locations initially, said South Palm Beach Police
Chief Roger Crane.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">By the time Kertzman reached the beach, another man was already in the water. Both
bodies were limp. Kertzman took Agelatos. The other man, identified only as
David from Boynton Beach, tried to pull the woman ashore.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">“It’s very hard to pull a lifeless person out of the water,” Kertzman said. David
joined him and they pulled Agelatos onto the beach, then his wife.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">They did chest compressions on the bodies until a Lantana lifeguard arrived from the
public beach about a quarter-mile south. Then paramedics arrived with a vacuum
pump and a portable defibrillator. Nothing helped.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">“In my heart of hearts, I thought she was going to come back to life,” he said.
“It’s really hard. I’ve always been successful. If you want something to
happen, I was the guy to make it happen. This time I failed. This time I
couldn’t make it happen.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Kertzman later met with the three adult sons of the Agelatos.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">He proposed that columns be driven into the beach behind each condominium with
foot-high numbers street address numbers affixed to each. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;">And rip out old A1A from beneath the sea, he said. It’s a large drop-off into deep water beyond the road. <br /></span></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960297453,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p></div>