Florida Lifeguards Seek Recognition as First Responders

Yanking a girl's hair is usually considered impolite. But Jason Dare didn't have a choice.

The teenage girl was drowning and Dare - having already battled the rip current to save a man on a boogie board and the girl's friend - didn't have time to play Mr. Nice Guy. He swam over to the spot where the girl's head went under, thrust his hand into the water, grabbed a fist-full of long hair and pulled up hard.

"She took the deepest breath I ever saw," says Dare, an ocean lifeguard who, at 26 years old, is already a lieutenant in St. Lucie County's Department of Marine Safety.

But Dare wasn't finished.

"As I got the girls in, I was dead tired. I turned around and there's a lady and her two kids headed out right in the same spot."

He dived back in and rescued the two kids. Another lifeguard, who had arrived as backup, dealt with the mom.

If you're keeping track, Dare saved five lives in 15 minutes.

Not bad for a beach bum.

Like Rodney Dangerfield, lifeguards get no respect. If they're not taking knocks because of a cheesy TV show called Baywatch, then David Letterman is giving them grief on The Late Show: (Top 10 Lifeguard Pick-up Lines: "Can I buy you a glass of Coppertone?" Or, Top 10 Signs Your Lifeguard is Nuts: "Instead of a whistle, uses a tuba.")

"We get a bum rap," says Jennifer Noonan, 31, a nine-year veteran.

"Most people think we're working on our tans and chasing women," says Paul Drucker, 53, who's a bit tired of the beach bum rap after 28 years in the lifeguard tower.

Some lifeguards say that even Palm Beach County doesn't treat lifeguards right, lumping them together with gardeners and pool cleaners in the Parks and Recreation Department. Many other lifeguard agencies, including those in Martin and St. Lucie counties, are part of the same departments that house police and fire-rescue.

Which is exactly where Drucker says Palm Beach County's 90-plus lifeguards belong.

They are first responders, equipped with radios, specialized vehicles, flotation equipment, cervical collars, spine boards, suction devices, emergency oxygen, bandages, dressings and more. Like half his brethren in Palm Beach County, and all lifeguards in Martin and St. Lucie, he is a certified Emergency Medical Technician who must deal with heart failure, shark bites, jellyfish stings, women going into labor, and drug overdoses, as well as drowning victims.

But Don May, chief ocean lifeguard for Palm Beach County and Drucker's boss, says the attitude about the arrangement is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." He points out that the county won the United States Lifesaving Association national championships in Daytona two years ago, and another championship in Orlando where they beat out "firefighters, police and other rescue agencies. . . . We're doing very well where we are."

Of course, the business of lifeguarding isn't about winning contests, but keeping people safe.

Mike Mammen, 30, who works full-time in Martin County and two days a week in St. Lucie, saved four people in one day. The last one - a man who didn't know how to swim - had slipped off the back of a sandbar and "started drowning immediately. I sprinted as fast as I have ever run in my life, porpoise-dove out to him, grabbed him by the armpit, and hoisted him up so he could breathe." As Mammen brought him ashore, "He proceeded to thank me after which he walked right back into the water. I had to yell at him. People don't know what we do until they see us in action."

In all, Martin County lifeguards chalked up 435 rescues last year - 179 in October alone - because beach re-nourishment to fix hurricane damage had altered the sand and created dangerous rip currents - the No. 1 reason for rescues. St. Lucie County recorded 17 rescues. Palm Beach County lifeguards took part in 74 rescues.

"We deal with life and death on a moment's notice," Drucker says.

Drucker's last big rescue - Jan. 29, 2005 - could have cost him his own life.