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Friday, March 29, 2024

Lifeguard tales

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More than 50 years have passed since Carl Hiatt manned a wooden roofless lifeguard stand at Wrightsville Beach, squinting at the sparkling ocean for hours or hauling a metal rescue buoy down the beach strand to pull swimmers off the jetties. But rather than the arduous work, what he remembers most clearly about the lifeguarding job is its perks — meeting countless people, forming lifelong friendships with the other guards and witnessing the arrival of the two-piece bathing suit at Wrightsville Beach.

“It was a blue and white polka-dot bikini,” he recalled.

Hiatt guarded at the Carolina Yacht Club and said management wanted him to confront the woman about the appropriateness of her swimwear. He obliged.

“I told her I saw nothing wrong with it,” he said, chuckling.

Hiatt and 30 other former Wrightsville Beach lifeguards from the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s gathered Nov. 14 to reminisce about shared experiences and meet those who manned the stands before them.

The younger guards called those who guarded in the 1950s, like Dan Packard, the “jetty jumpers” because they frequently had to save people from getting sucked into the currents swirling around the beach strand jetties. Once, Packard watched a man who was playing ball with a friend get caught in a current after wading into the water to retrieve an errant pass.
“The next thing I knew, he swam right into the jetty and he’s got his legs and arms wrapped around the piling,” Packard said.

Packard tried to pull the man off the piling as waves pounded them. The man was covered in cuts by the time Packard got him back to shore.

“So we told him to go to Babies Hospital on the way home,” he said.

Emergency Medical Services didn’t respond to Wrightsville Beach incidents, so it was up to the local lifeguards and police to save and occasionally transport victims. George Erkes, who worked as a lifeguard for seven years during the 1970s, proudly stated they never lost a life during that time, even when the unexpected occurred mid-rescue.

One time, the guards were performing CPR on a drowning victim when the victim’s false teeth popped out and went down his throat. Lifeguard Brad Walls said he looked at his fellow guards and said, “That can’t be good.”

They continued CPR and saved the man.

“I guess he got the teeth back eventually,” Walls said.

The lifeguards also employed unorthodox techniques for keeping swimmers safe from sea creatures. One day, they saw a large shark swimming close to shore between Johnnie Mercer’s Pier and Stone Street. They realized if they got it close to the pier they could tag it with an empty Clorox bottle that would bob behind the shark and alert swimmers of its location. It was Ronnie Schnell’s task to “coax the shark” to the pier.

“He’s in the water with his torpedo buoy, throwing it at the shark and going, ‘Shoo, shoo!’” fellow guard Todd Musick said, laughing.

In addition to learning lifesaving techniques, the guards also had to pass a physical test, because with only three stands on the beach, distance running was a crucial part of the job. While today’s guards have 13 stands and multiple ATVs, trucks and Jet Skis, guards back then had three stands — at Johnnie Mercer’s Pier, Station One and the Lumina Pavilion — and one black World War II Jeep.

Though the staff was small, they had less space to cover. Shell Island was separated from Wrightsville Beach by Moores Inlet, so lifeguards only went down there to confront the nude sunbathers that sometimes hid in between the dunes.

Working long hours built trust between the lifeguards, but it was the after-hours hijinks that solidified their camaraderie.

“There was a great social aspect to it,” Schnell said, recalling one of their wilder escapades at Red Dog’s. He and a few fellow guards decided to strip down in the bathroom and go streaking through the bar to the front door. But when Schnell yanked the door open, he found himself face to face with a Wrightsville Beach policeman, so he kept running all the way into the ocean.

The lifeguards also engaged in more innocent fun. 1960s guard Charlie Jones said he and two other lifeguards scraped together $100 to buy a surfboard, which was only the second surfboard on Wrightsville Beach at the time. On mornings they wanted to surf at dawn, they spent the night in a Wrightsville Beach beauty salon owned by their friend’s mom, turning on the hair dryers if it got cold.

It was those experiences, both on the job and after hours, which turned coworkers into lifelong friends who still come together every few years to keep the memories alive.

Those friendships, 1970s guard Ray Funderburk said, were one of the main reasons they all became lifeguards.

“You did it because of the guys you got to hang out with,” Funderburk said.

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