Though to many the ocean on Thursday may have seemed calm, Wrightsville Beach Ocean Rescue made 29 saves yesterday, with several of those coming from the assistance of swimmers and surfers.
One of those rescues came after Jennifer Twiggs, a visitor from Charlotte, was the first to reach a distressed swimmer who was being pulled out in the rip current.
“He was really struggling, he was quite pale,” Twiggs said of Hugh Daughtry, the 70-year-old Bradley Creek Point man she helped rescue. “He was definitely in trouble.”
Wrightsville Beach Ocean Rescue Capt. Jeremy Owens said the rescue was the result of a common issue on days like Thursday when the ocean may look calm and welcoming, but in fact rip currents pose more danger than on choppy, rough days.
“The days that don’t look bad are the silent killers,” Owens said. “The ocean looks inviting and glassy, but it ends up pulling an unwary swimmer away from the beach.”
Twiggs, who was riding a bodyboard in the surf in front of the Carolina Yacht Club at around noon, noticed that she was taken out further than she expected, as she herself was having trouble kicking the board back to shore. Her son and niece were nearby, also playing in the waves.
“I heard a garbled ‘help’ and saw an older man on the right who was further out than I was,” she said. “He didn’t look like he was in distress, he was floating. But if I’m having a hard time getting in and I’m on a ‘Boogie Board,’ I knew he needed help.”
Twiggs, whose mother Anne Russell lives in Wilmington, yelled for her son to go get help from the lifeguard while she kicked the board over to the Daughtry. She reached the man and the two clung to the board while the lifeguard swam out to help. They were both fatigued at that point, said Twiggs, who works as a certified neuromuscular therapist. When the lifeguard arrived, she had recovered and swam in herself, leaving the lifeguard to help Daughtry back to shore on her board.
“He just did the wrong thing and tried to swim against the rip current,” Twiggs said. Lifeguards advise swimmers to remain calm and relaxed and to swim parallel to the shore to get out of a rip current.
Owens, whose crew made more than two dozen rescues on Thursday, said that while conditions were great for surfers, they were dangerous for swimmers, especially inexperienced ones not familiar with the ocean’s deceptive power.
“A lot of people don’t know how to recognize rip currents,” said Owens, adding that a way to spot rip currents is to look for the brown or grey water that washes out from the beach.
Twiggs concurred, noting that she is a strong swimmer, but the rip current’s pull surprised her yesterday.
“I thought you would feel it,” she said. ‘It seemed like I can swim against this, no problem. Now I have more of an understanding of how powerful they are.”
The lifeguards had the help of what Owens said are the often unsung heroes of an ocean rescue: surfers. In several cases yesterday, surfers were the first to reach struggling swimmers, providing lifesaving flotation while ocean rescue swam out to help.
“Having the surfing community behind us makes a big difference,” he said. “They do a great job looking out for the safety of swimmers and they’re always willing to assist.”
Surfers are in the perfect position to provide the flotation that is critical for an ocean rescue to be successful, Owens said. Swimmers who don’t have a flotation device and aren’t trained in ocean rescue should not try to save potential drowning victims, as they can often drown the person trying to save them.
“We don’t want anyone out making rescues,” he said. “The best thing you can do is get them flotation.”
Another thing beachgoers can do is get the attention of a lifeguard immediately, Twiggs said. Several sunbathers recognized something was wrong, but they weren’t quick to alert the lifeguard, she added.
“Just because there’s a lifeguard there, it doesn’t mean he or she sees you,” Twiggs said. “We all need to watch out for each other.”
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