Los Angeles County Ocean Lifeguard Ed Butts received the 2015 Medal of Valor award Thursday night for rescuing two swimmers last July from a sea cave near Inspiration Point in Palos Verdes. The difficult to reach cave, known as Gorge 3, opens to the ocean. Social media has made the cove popular with young thrill seekers, who jump from a ledge over the cave into the water. Large surf creates dangerous surges in and out of the cave.
Butts’s lifeguard tower is at Abalone Cove, one cove north of Inspiration Point. He made the two rescues last July 6, after hiking over to Gorge 3 on the suspicion that swimmers there might be in trouble. Earlier that day, large surf had required him to make numerous rescues at Abalone Cove.
Just days following Butts’s rescues last July, a 19-year-old Long Beach man drowned at Gorge 3. And just hours before last Thursday’s presentation, a 20-year-old Carson man drowned at the entrance to the cave.
Lifeguards Steve Sturdivant and Nick Facer also received 2015 Medal of Valor awards at Thursday’s Annual Lifeguards Medal of Valor Dinner at the Seaside Lagoon in Redondo Beach.
Lifeguards Matt Samuel and Kari Scoggins received Distinguished Service awards.Retired lifeguard Scott Hubbell received the Lifetime Achievement Award. And local surfers Natalie Anzivino, Brent Bowen and Kyle Dalbey received Special Recognition awards,
Sturdivant is a deckhand on the lifeguard boat Baywatch Avalon. Last December, a severe storm battered Avalon Harbor on Catalina Island. That evening, Sturdivant helped secure two large vessels that had broken free of their moorings. Then he swam to the rescue of a boater who had been thrown in the water after his boat crashed on the Casino breakwall. At the end of the night, while being treated for hypothermia, he assisted a boater who suffered a compound fracture after he attempted to stave off another boat with his foot.
Facer, who is also a Torrance fire fighter, received the Medal of Valor award for a rescue he made on vacation in Ireland. Facer was surfing at an isolated beach when galeforce, offshore winds blew an Irish surfer a mile out to sea. Facer paddled after the surfer on his shortboard with the intention of making sure the Irish surfer would be okay until the Irish Coast Guard arrived. When the Coast Guard boat turned back because of the rough seas, Facer used his leash to tow the exhausted Irish surfer back to the beach.
Facer played down his act, saying, “We all need our hands held sometimes. I’ve been in those situations myself.”
Scoggins and Samuel received Distinguished Service Awards for rescuing a surfer from under the Malibu last August during the Hurricane Marie swell, when sets reached 20-feet.
Hubbell received the Lifetime Achievement award for nearly two decades as a lifeguard and for promoting lifeguard-related events through his Scott Hubbell Productions. In addition to managing the marketing of the International Surf Festival, he has produced over 400 lifeguard competitions and provided water safety and technical advice on over 300 film and television productions, including “Baywatch.”
Retired chief Don Rohrer said of the bigger than life Hubbell, “The worse the conditions got, the better Hubbell performed.”
Hawaiian Lifeguard Butch Ukauka presented Hubbell with a wood bowl carved by chief Hawaiian lifeguard Ralph Goto. Ukauka said the bowl was in appreciation for the work Hubbell in bringing together the island lifeguards with the California lifeguards.
Anzivino, Bowen and Dalbey received the Special Recognition Award for rescuing a young surfer who was floating face down after hitting his head on the Manhattan Beach pier during a large swell this past April. The three placed the unconscious boy on Dalbey’s bodyboard and swam him toward shore, where lifeguards performed CPR. The boy, who had stopped breathing, made a full recovery.
Guests at the dinner included members of the Victoria, Australian lifeguards, who will be competing this weekend with Los Angeles County lifeguards for the Wieland Shield. The Wieland Shield competition takes place every two years.
Two lifeguards from Great Britain also attended the dinner. Kate Berridge, a lifeguard supervisor in South Devon and Tom John, a Senior Lifeguard in Swansea, South Wales are visiting as part of a training exchange program organized by the Los Angeles County Lifesaving Association. ER
