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Photos by Steve Gaffney (SteveGaffney.com)
Los Angeles County Lifeguard Ivan Wilkins was patrolling Manhattan Beach aboard a personal watercraft Sunday afternoon when he noticed the red rescue can was gone from the 42nd Street lifeguard tower. In front of the tower was a wide patch of brown water, indicative of a rip current.
Lifeguard Deric Parsoneault had left the tower with the rescue can in hand to warn swimmers away from the rip. His eye was on a small, blond boy jumping up and down in the shallow water.
“A lateral current started dragging the boy north, toward a hole and then a set wave hit him in the back of the head and the rip took him out,” Parsoneault said.
Wilkins saw Parsoneault wave the rescue can in the air and raced over to assist him. The two reached the boy, 50 yards off shore, just as a set of overhead waves came through.
“I lunged for him and got ahold of him. But then another wave came in and the boy went over my head and we both went under. I came up and he was nowhere to be seen,” Parsoneault said.
“Ivan yelled, ‘He’s to your left. Have you got him?’”
On the beach, professional photographer Steve Gaffney was taking pictures of his sons Myles, 12, and Chase, 9. They were competing in the 10th Annual Jimmy Miller Fiesta surf contest, just south of the 42nd Street tower.
“I saw the PWC blast over a wave and followed it,” Gaffney said.
Gaffney’s first photo of the rescue shows the PWC airborne and pointed out to sea. Wilkins’s helmeted head is turned toward the boy. The boy is 20 feet away. All but his head is swallowed up in white water. In the following frames, Parsoneault is seen holding the boy aloft as Wilkins circles them. The final photo shows Parsoneault handing the boy off to his young father.
The boy’s expression is calm throughout the rescue, until he is returned to his father’s arms. Then the reality of his brush with death, at five-years-old, appears to sink in and he begins to cry.
“The dad was very grateful, very gracious. He said he was glad we’re on the beach,” Parsoneault said.
Parsoneault was returning his rescue can to its hook on the front of his tower when he saw Wilkins speed off on another rescue.
A bearded, bareback surfer wearing a red Ronald McDonald wig and riding a Costco soft top longboard was signaling for help. An adult, female swimmer was hanging onto to his board.
Lifeguard Kenny Brechtelsbauer, who was working the 39th Street tower, also saw the red-wigged surfer signaling and swam out to to assist Wilkins. The two guards pulled the woman on to the PWC rescue sled. Then, with Brechtelsbauer holding the woman on the sled, Wilkins drove the PWC into shallow water and dropped them off. The red-wigged surfer resumed surfing.
Nearly 200,000 people visited Manhattan Beach beaches over the weekend, drawn by the 74 degree water and 80 degree air. The large crowds combined with a large southwest swell, accompanied by strong rip currents, resulted in 210 lifeguard rescues in the Beach Cities alone, on Saturday and Sunday. Countywide, from San Pedro to Zuma Beach, lifeguards made 430 rescues on Saturday when the swell peaked and 238 rescues on Sunday.
Wilkins participated in 42 rescues on Saturday, as he patrolled the five miles between the Redondo breakwall and the El Segundo jetty. He said Saturday was the busiest day of his 18 years patrolling on a PWC. He credited surfers, like the red-wigged longboarder, with assisting the lifeguards in many of the weekend’s rescues. Rescues involving multiple victims were common, he said, especially in the rips just south of the Manhattan Beach pier. He frequently brought victims ashore, three and four at a time aboard his PWC rescue sled.
“Of the 42, I’d say half might have made it back to the beach on their own, 10 really needed help, and the rest were going to drown,” Wilkins said. “I remember when we didn’t have the PWCs. It’s just fortunate we do now.”
“It was one of the greatest days I’ve ever worked. The busier it is, the better I like it, so long as no one is lost,” he said.
Parsoneault, a recurrent (part time) lifeguard for the past 12 summers, was not as sanguine.
“Rescuing little kids, that’s the kind of thing that keeps me up at night,” he said. ER
