Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been a longtime ocean lifeguard because I'm a teacher and the conditions haven't changed but people have become more entitled and seem to "know it all" about all things even when they know very little minus a 30 second TikTok on rip currents.

Many of these incidents occur when lifeguards are off-duty or on unguarded beaches. It's simply not worth the risk to swim on an unprotected beach.

What's it like to be an ocean guard? Do you get bored? How many saves are typical for a week?

Duh, Baywatch?

PP here who works as an ocean lifeguard. I've done it since I was a teenager and it's an amazing summer job for students and teachers. You get paid to workout and serve a community. Some days are slow but ocean conditions dictate how busy we get in terms of rescues. I've gone weeks with no rescues in May/June and then it will pick up in July. During July rescues become more common and I might have a handful each week but then there will be a random day with bad rips and I'll have ten. August is when we start feeling the effects of tropical storms and hurricanes off the coast. We begin getting large surf and big rip currents on a fairly regular basis and those tend to be the busiest weeks for rescues.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been a longtime ocean lifeguard because I'm a teacher and the conditions haven't changed but people have become more entitled and seem to "know it all" about all things even when they know very little minus a 30 second TikTok on rip currents.

Many of these incidents occur when lifeguards are off-duty or on unguarded beaches. It's simply not worth the risk to swim on an unprotected beach.

The “know it all” swimmers are first cousins to the people who try to get a closeup photo of a bear or alligator. They are also related to to folks who try to get that too-perfect selfie on the rim of the Grand Canyon…oops!

I chuckled. Getting those "likes" is serious bidness now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up going to the Jersey shore and I’m 100% sure my parents didn’t know anything about rip currents. My dad never really went to the ocean as a kid and my mom just doesn’t think bad things can happen to her. I was never taught how dangerous the ocean can be.

I wonder if there are just more people traveling now, so there are more people at the beach who don’t understand the risks.

I also grew up going to the Jersey shore and my parents definitely did know about undertow. This was not top secret knowledge.

Undertow and rip currents are different things, but many people use them interchangeably and still don’t understand the difference.

Fortunately, understanding the precise uses of the terms was not essential to teaching me how to extricate myself from the respective phenomena.

Congrats, you get a medal for having responsible parents and advanced vocabulary.

Anonymous wrote:This surf in the mid-Atlantic has been especially rough this summer, contributing to rip currents and dangerous shorebreak.

+1 I grew up in the mid-Atlantic, and spent a lot of time at the beach every summer. I had never seen red no swimming flags up until this month.

Unusually dangerous conditions coupled with people with little to no ocean safety awareness means more ocean drownings.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up going to the Jersey shore and I’m 100% sure my parents didn’t know anything about rip currents. My dad never really went to the ocean as a kid and my mom just doesn’t think bad things can happen to her. I was never taught how dangerous the ocean can be.

I wonder if there are just more people traveling now, so there are more people at the beach who don’t understand the risks.

I also grew up going to the Jersey shore and my parents definitely did know about undertow. This was not top secret knowledge.

Undertow and rip currents are different things, but many people use them interchangeably and still don’t understand the difference.

Fortunately, understanding the precise uses of the terms was not essential to teaching me how to extricate myself from the respective phenomena.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been a longtime ocean lifeguard because I'm a teacher and the conditions haven't changed but people have become more entitled and seem to "know it all" about all things even when they know very little minus a 30 second TikTok on rip currents.

Many of these incidents occur when lifeguards are off-duty or on unguarded beaches. It's simply not worth the risk to swim on an unprotected beach.

What's it like to be an ocean guard? Do you get bored? How many saves are typical for a week?

Duh, Baywatch?

Most people are on their phones nowadays and not at the beach, so no, to me it doesn’t seem so.

Anonymous wrote:I have been a longtime ocean lifeguard because I'm a teacher and the conditions haven't changed but people have become more entitled and seem to "know it all" about all things even when they know very little minus a 30 second TikTok on rip currents.

Many of these incidents occur when lifeguards are off-duty or on unguarded beaches. It's simply not worth the risk to swim on an unprotected beach.

What's it like to be an ocean guard? Do you get bored? How many saves are typical for a week?

OP the drowning you think was in Massachusetts was actually in New Hampshire at Hampton Beach, at the end of a week of constant warnings to stay out of the water or exhibit extreme caution because of extreme rip currents created by offshore Hurricane Erin exacerbating wave activity. They rescued 144 people from rip currents at Hampton last week, because people just would not stay out of the water.

https://www.wmtw.com/article/hampton-beach-rip-currents-rescues-new-hampshire/65809176

We had a person presumed drowned in a boating mishap last week in Massachusetts.

Anonymous wrote:I have been a longtime ocean lifeguard because I'm a teacher and the conditions haven't changed but people have become more entitled and seem to "know it all" about all things even when they know very little minus a 30 second TikTok on rip currents.

Many of these incidents occur when lifeguards are off-duty or on unguarded beaches. It's simply not worth the risk to swim on an unprotected beach.

The “know it all” swimmers are first cousins to the people who try to get a closeup photo of a bear or alligator. They are also related to to folks who try to get that too-perfect selfie on the rim of the Grand Canyon…oops!

Anonymous wrote:We have whole new generations of people who think the rules don’t apply to them.

Exactly. You see it in the way they drive, too. And so many people around here acting like it’s outrageous to ask people who have overstayed their visa to go home doesn’t exactly help.

There are more people in the world, so yes, there are more drownings.

Anonymous wrote:We have whole new generations of people who think the rules don’t apply to them.

Yo brah, like forget about gravity rules n stuff, we are flying off this building....

I have been a longtime ocean lifeguard because I'm a teacher and the conditions haven't changed but people have become more entitled and seem to "know it all" about all things even when they know very little minus a 30 second TikTok on rip currents.

Many of these incidents occur when lifeguards are off-duty or on unguarded beaches. It's simply not worth the risk to swim on an unprotected beach.

If you don’t heed the warnings, you’re gonna pay for it. Unfortunately, drowning is a consequence.