Belmar honors 15 lifeguards

Belmar honors 15 lifeguards
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 06/28/07
BY ERIK LARSEN
COASTAL MONMOUTH BUREAU

Post Comment
BELMAR — The borough plans to staff its beaches with lifeguards earlier in the summer tourist season as the weather dictates, Mayor Kenneth E. Pringle said at Wednesday's Borough Council meeting.

The announcement came after the mayor and council awarded 15 lifeguards with a resolution honoring them for saving the lives of 11 swimmers in the waters off Belmar on June 11, just a few days before the guards were set to go on duty full-time.

Municipal beach patrols in Monmouth County typically start Memorial Day weekend and then work each weekend after, until about mid-June, when the guards are on duty seven days a week.

Michael Marino, 77, a resident who lives on Eighth Avenue, said he's been an advocate of longer beach seasons for over a decade.

"Twelve years ago, I recommended a lifeguard presence for the middle of May to the end of September," Marino said.

Pringle said his administration will explore the logistics of such a proposal and come up with a plan by spring to ensure "a quick response" to incidents like the one for which the guards were honored Wednesday night.

Carrie Rider, 21, an off-duty borough lifeguard, was on the beachfront about 11 a.m. on June 11 when she spotted three swimmers near the 16th Avenue jetty who were being swept into a fast moving rip current. Eight other swimmers, some trying to offer assistance, would also get pulled in before the ordeal ended.

Meanwhile, Ryan Matthews, 24, another off-duty guard and one of the beach patrol's top performers in competitive lifesaving tournaments, was working out off the 15th Avenue beach on a paddleboard, when he spotted the frenzy going on one block south.

Earlier that Monday morning, scattered across the beachfront, 13 other lifeguards had been hard at work organizing and assembling equipment in preparation for the following Saturday, the first day guards were to go on duty full-time.

By 11 a.m. they were supposed to have been gone. But Bill Karatz, Belmar's chief lifeguard, had gauged the size of the crowds — he estimated 1,000 people were on the beach — and decided to keep the guards on until about 2 p.m. By late morning, many of them had finished their assigned work and were just keeping an informal watch on the beach.

Three days earlier, in an off-duty accident, Rider had been struck in the face with a surfboard and had to be patched up with six stitches. She was under doctor's orders not to go into the water.

She hurried over to where some of her colleagues had a short time earlier unloaded some lifesaving gear, found a radio and began calling for help before eventually going into the water herself to help with the rescue.

In addition to Rider and Matthews, the responding guards were Tim O'Donnell, Andy Rogers, Gene Weiss, Devin Peppler, Ryan Cunard, Stephanie Brady, Allyson Weinkofsky, Traci Jessop, Anthony Arnold, Chris Jessop, Mike MacDonald, Ellen Mitchell and Andrew Harsin.