Lifeguards rescue one of their own during Surf Festival Pier to Pier Swim [Update]
Abe Estess administers mouth to mouth resuscitation while lifeguard Stefen Sleeis applies chest compressions and lifeguard Dustin Miller checks swimmer Ed Nelson’s pulse. Waiting for medical equipment to arrive are lifeguards LeLei Moore and Dan Katayama. Photo
Update: The Nelson family released the following statement Wednesday afternoon, August 5, 2015: This afternoon, George Edward Nelson passed away. Erik, Heidi, Dave and I were able to share his last few moments with him. He was a true competitor to the end. We, again, cannot thank all of you for the outpouring of support that we have received during this difficult time. His life will be celebrated, Sunday, August 16 at 9 a.m. with a paddleout and swim at Torrance Beach.
Ed’s last race
In 1974, recurrent (part time) Los Angeles County Lifeguard and Redondo Beach Adams Middle School PE teacher Ed Nelson finished the Dwight Crum Pier to Pier Swim in one hour, seven minutes. In the ensuing years, he competed in the race just about every year he wasn’t sidelined by knee or hip surgery, according to race director Gary Crum.
“He was never one of our fastest swimmers, but he was always one of the fittest,” Crum said.
Ed Nelson thanks his escort paddler Brad Wilson as they approach the Manhattan Beach pier, just a few hundred yards from the Pier to Pier Swim finish line. Photo by Dan Vaughn
On Sunday, the 76-year-old Nelson was on track to finish the two mile, open ocean swim in an hour, 10 minutes. Nelson has remained a competitive swimmer through daily, 5:30 a.m. workouts with the Los Angeles Peninsula Swimmers at the Torrance Plunge, biking up to 20 miles a day and working out at the South End Tennis Club, according to friend and fellow retired lifeguard Joel Gitelson.
Escort paddler Brad Wilson and swimmer Ed Nelson Sunday morning, shortly before the start of Sunday morning’s Dwight Crum Pier to Pier Swim. Photo courtesy of the Nelson Family
Over 1,000 swimmers from around the world compete in the Dwight Crum Pier to Pier Swim each year. The race is the signature event of the weekend-long International Surf Festival. The race starts on the beach on the south side of the Hermosa Beach Pier and ends on the beach on the north side of the Manhattan Beach pier. Nelson was in the middle of the pack when he reached the Manhattan Beach pier Sunday morning.
Paddlers DJ O’Brien and Brad Wilson (right), watch hopefully as lifeguards attempt to resuscitate Nelson. With them are Manhattan Beach Parks and Recreation supervisor Idris Al-Oboudi and Abe Estess, who administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the lifeguard medical equipment arrived.
“Great job,” Nelson’s escort paddler, retired Torrance Police Department Captain Brad Wilson, said to him when they reached the Manhattan pier.
“Thanks. See you at the gym on Monday,” Nelson called back. Then Nelson swam on toward the north side of the pier while Wilson prepared to paddle in on the south side. Photographs of Nelson taken from the pier by friend Dan Vaughn show him swimming strongly.
Pier to Pier swimmers are encouraged to have escort paddlers for safety and to keep them on a straight course. There are no easy-to-see landmarks to guide them.
Lifeguards begin work with resuscitation equipment and an automatic external defibrillator (AED).
Upon reaching the Manhattan pier, escorts are required to leave their swimmers and paddle in on the south side of the pier to avoid collisions with swimmers at the finish line.
After wishing Nelson well, Wilson sat up to look for fellow paddleboarder DJ O’Brien, who was escorting another swimmer.
While looking back on the course for O’Brien, he heard screams for a lifeguard. Turning around, he saw an escort and a lifeguard at the head of the pier pulling a swimmer onto the lifeguard’s paddleboard.
“I had been sitting up where the escorts have to stop for several minutes, thinking Ed would have finished when I heard someone scream ‘We need help.” I paddled over as fast as I could. I had no idea it was Ed,” the retired police officer said.
“As soon as I reached Ed, a lifeguard PWC (personal water craft) was there and Ed was on the rescue sled getting CPR while they raced him to the beach,” Wilson said.
Lifeguards carry Ed Nelson on a stretcher to their truck, which brought Nelson to a Manhattan Beach paramedic van waiting in the pier parking lot.
Swimmer Conrad VonBlankenburg, a general contractor and former lifeguard was rounding the pier and about to swim into the beach when he noticed another swimmer face down and not moving.
“He was four to six feet outside the pilings at the end of the pier. I picked his face up out of the water and knew he was passed out and unresponsive. Using my construction voice I yelled at the top of my lungs that the swimmer was in trouble. A lifeguard came flying over and we got the swimmer up on his board,” VonBlankenburg said.
“I lifeguarded with Ed in 1957 and 1958 but did not know who I was helping at the time. It was just a person in trouble. If I had not cut in tight to the pilings I would have missed Ed completely.”
Nelson is the patriarch of a lifeguard family. He became a lifeguard in 1960 and manned a lifeguard tower until just two summers ago. His son Eric is a lifeguard captain, his daughter-in-law Heidi a recurrent lifeguard. His daughter Jennifer was a Redondo Beach pool lifeguard and her husband Dave Shenbaum is a recurrent lifeguard and Manhattan Beach fire fighter.
Ed Nelson’s grandchildren Kai and Kalani compete in the Velzy/Stevens Pier to Pier Paddleboard Race Sunday morning with mom Heidi (bottom) and friend DJ O’Brien. Photo by Joel Gitelson.
Heidi and Eric’s two oldest children, Taylor and Kalani, are Junior Lifeguards. Prior to Sunday’s Pier to Pier Swim, Heidi and O’Brien had paddled alongside Kalani and his younger brother Kai in the Velzy-Stevens Pier to Pier Paddleboard Race. That race started at 7:30 a.m at the Manhattan pier and finished at the Hermosa pier, where O’Brien met the swimmer she would escort back to the Manhattan pier. Heidi walked her two boys back to the Manhattan pier to cheer in their grandfather at the end of the swim.
O’Brien said she reached the pier just in time to see the PWC with a swimmer on the sled. “When I saw Brad following the PWC in, I realized, “Oh my God, it’s Ed.”
Ocean Lifeguard Specialist Stephan Sleeis drove the PWC though the surfline on to the beach, where he was met by three other lifeguards who carried Nelson up to dry sand.
Abe Estess had biked to the pier from his Hermosa Beach home that morning to cheer on his partner’s wife Mary Donlevy. She won the women’s 45 to 49 division with a time of 50:50.
After congratulating her, Estess went body surfing on the south side of the pier to cool off. He was exiting the water when the lifeguard PWC slammed into the beach a few feet away from him..
As an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, Estess regularly undergoes advanced cardiac life support training.
He and Sleeis assessed Nelson’s pulse and respiratory pattern and found neither.
Estess commenced mouth to mouth and Sleeis chest compressions until a lifeguard quad arrived with resuscitation equipment and an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED).
Largely because of health concerns, CPR related training no longer recommends mouth to mouth resuscitation.
“It was a calculated risk,” Estess said of his action that morning.
After being relieved, Estess spent a few minutes comforting Wilson and O’Brien, who were watching the effort to resuscitate their friend with their arms around one another. Then Estess biked home. His identify only became publicly known after his photograph appeared on Easy Reader’s website. Out of respect for Nelson’s and his family’s privacy, Estess declined to discuss his help that morning, except to say, “I was glad to be there to lend a hand and I have the greatest respect for the lifeguards and their well orchestrated efforts to save Mr. Nelson.”
Swimmers and passersby formed a circle around Nelson and began crying out, “Come on, Eddie. Fight.”
Manhattan Beach Parks and Recreation supervisor Idris Al-Oboudi, who had been overseeing the Surf Festival sand castle contest, pushed the crowd back to make way for the lifeguard truck that had been called.
Nelson was placed on a stretcher, with the defibrillator resting on his legs, and raced up the beach to the truck. A lifeguard ran alongside him, carrying oxygen. The lifeguard truck was met at the pier parking lot by a Manhattan Beach paramedic van, which transported him to Little Company of Mary Hospital.
Enroute, the paramedics succeeded in restoring Nelson’s pulse.
Sunday evening, Nelson remained in critical condition in the intensive care unit at Little Company of Mary, according to lifeguard public information officer Kenichi Haskett. While Nelson remains in intensive care, the family has requested that there be no visitors, Haskett said. ER