PROFILES, from page 1 Coming in waves
BAYWATCH HDQRTS. — Dave Estey describes his job as long periods of boredom coupled with moments of terror.
That’s probably a fair assessment for the Los Angeles County Lifeguard veteran who has saved more than 2,000 lives in his 32 years scanning the coastlines of Santa Monica and Venice.
Now in his 33rd summer, Estey has climbed the ranks of Baywatch — the lifeguard division of the Los Angeles County Fire Department — from a seasonal rookie to the more prestigious title of Lifeguard Ocean Specialist. He works two 24-hour shifts at Baywatch headquarters, a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week operation just south of the Santa Monica Pier.
Estey and his crew have been busy in recent weeks gearing up for the Memorial Day Weekend and getting the beach ready for an estimated 300,000 people who come to the Santa Monica shores on a given sunny day. With 30, 40 or even 50 million people visiting area beaches every year, Baywatch lifeguards like Estey push safety as their No. 1 goal, hopefully preventing countless drownings and other unfortunate circumstances.
“Any time we have good weather, our crowds can shoot to the half-million or million mark very quickly considering Santa Monica, Venice, Zuma and Manhattan are some of the busiest beaches in the world, with the exception of Rio or San Paulo,”Estey said.
Growing up in Canoga Park, Estey, 50, left the Southern California lifestyle behind for a few years to study earth sciences at the University of Northern Colorado, where he received his degree. But the call of the ocean harkened him back.As a college student and as a graduate,Estey worked as a seasonal lifeguard for 12 years before making it a full-time gig.
And why not? The benefits are good, the pay is decent and the beach is his office. But more importantly, the work is rewarding.
“One of the greatest things about coming to work and doing your job correctly is you probably send people home at the end of the day safely that may have not gone home safely at the end of the day,” Estey said. “That’s a really great feeling, to make a difference in someone’s life.”
Estey, who plans to retire to Steamboat Springs, Colo., where he has a second home, lives in Venice. Joking that maybe he hasn’t felt the need to grow up yet, Estey has managed to stay single. He recently sat down with the Daily Press to talk about life being a beach.
What’s your most spectacular save? “Anytime you make a save it’s spectacular. I have a vivid memory of rescuing two brothers out near Wilshire Boulevard. Big brother had decided to take little brother in the ocean. They got a little too far away from shore, with a little bit of a rip current taking them out further than they had planned. Little brother was not a very good swimmer, big brother was an OK swimmer. As soon as they got out past little brother’s ability to touch, he grabbed a hold of his big brother’s head. He was above water, but his big brother was under water. He was in the process of drowning his big brother, which meant he would have drown immediately after, so really I saved two brothers just by actually grabbing the little brother’s hand off the big brother’s head. That was all done within 10 yards of shore.”
How many rescues have you done? “Personally, in my 30 years, I have probably close to 2,000, guessing off the top of my head. Some years as a seasonal lifeguard I would have as many as 200 or 300 in a year, in one summer. My busiest day ever, I made 25 rescues in one day.”
What was that all about? “It was here in Santa Monica. It was a Memorial Day Weekend in 1983. I remember it vividly. It was a 1983 El Nino year. We had a lot of beach erosion and it also was the year that Santa Monica Pier was broken in half and taken away. We had a lot of inshore holes and the beach was recovering from a very nasty winter storm. When that happens, the ocean bottom is not flat. We have a lot of holes and Memorial Weekend happened to be a very nice, warm-weather weekend and the public showed up in great numbers and we couldn’t keep all of them out of the rip currents that kept pulling in our area, so we had a lot of rescues. Most of my rescues were in one rip current inshore hole most of the day. Sometimes two, three, four victims at a time.”
You must have been exhausted. “It was a long day. But there again, it was a great, rewarding exhaustion at the end of the day. It was a good tired. You went home happy knowing that ‘wow, I sent an extra 25 people home today.’”
What is the most common way people get into trouble?
“Rip currents and inshore holes are two of the biggest causes of rescues. They tend to work together. Water moves faster over deeper water, so when there is a hole, the current will move over the deeper water a little faster. Also, you’ll go from shallow water into deeper water fairly quickly. You can move from water as shallow as two or three feet into six or eight feet of water with a little bit of current very quickly. So the rip current pulls people into deeper water over the inshore hole and then they panic and try to fight the rip current.”
Do we have a lot of rip currents here? “Yes we do, as a matter of fact. Almost every day on the beach out here unless it is very calm conditions, but even in calm conditions we will see rip currents. Because of the spring conditions with the beach building sand and sand moving around a lot there are some inshore holes and sand bars and there are a lot of rip currents.”
What is the safest way to get out of a rip current?
“We want people, first of all, to heed our warnings. We will move people out of rip currents when we see them happening, so when you see a lifeguard whistling or waving on the beach one direction, that is the direction he or she wants you to move.You’ll swim out of the rip current and be fine. If you do get caught in a rip current and find yourself swimming, don’t fight it. Don’t panic. It’s not going to pull you under water, it will pull you away from shore. But if you are a good swimmer, you can just let the rip current pull you through the surf line and most rip currents will dissipate not long after you get pulled through the surf line. You can swim sideways or parallel to shore out of the rip current, and once out of the rip current, then swim back to shore. Don’t swim against the current, it’s like trying to swim upstream. The lifeguards are very good at recognizing these and warn people to get out of rip currents. Preventative lifeguarding is much more efficient for us than actually having to effect the rescue.”
Why did you become a lifeguard? “Initially, my swim coach in junior college was a junior lifeguard instructor at Zuma Beach and one of our workouts one day was we were all going to try out to be LA County Lifeguards, and so several members of the swim team made it on to the staff that year as lifeguards. I put myself through college. Most of our young seasonal lifeguards are in college or college swimmers or just off a high school swim team or water polo players. It’s a good summer job. It pays very well. It pays a lot better than the fast food industry or something like that. I could go back to school with a little bit more money in my pocket in September. Once I graduated from college, I stuck with it and my season extended a little bit more in the spring and fall, and then after a number of years doing seasonal lifeguarding, I realized I needed something in my future. I didn’t want to be broke at 60 years old. I wanted something with a retirement which is something that the full-time lifeguarding presents.”
What have you gotten out of it? “Even at the age of 18 or 19 years old, when you run down and rescue a child or somebody from a rip current or an inshore hole, you turn them away at the end of the day a person that may have been a fatality... just to go home and live the rest of their life. You have made an impact on somebody’s life and a lot of other jobs don’t have that luxury... it’s a rare job to actually impact a person’s life directly. It really is a rewarding feeling to know that you have actually saved a life. Other than that, the teamwork involved in all of Los Angeles County, it is a giant team of people to do the job.”
What’s the primary responsibility of a lifeguard?
“The one thing about lifeguarding is we have to wear a lot of hats. I guess that is the best cliché to describe it.We have a little bit to do with a lot of different things.We are in rescue work, we are in emergency medical services, we do a little bit of ordinance and police enforcement on the beach.We try to keep our enforcements to a minimum. Things that are more public safety — dogs on the beach, so we don’t have someone get bit by a dog. We also don’t want to get too distracted from our main mission, which is lifeguarding the ocean. We need to keep our attention on watching the water. It’s a term we pound into all of our first-year lifeguards — watch the water, watch the water, watch the water. And that is where most of our action happens. We are first responders. We have to see the incident happen or else we have a drowning.”
How much have the environs of the beach changed over the years?
“There’s always changes, but I have studied a little bit of history here at the beaches and been involved with some of our history projects... Before I was born, the beaches apparently were very busy at times. And the bathing attire has changed considerably.”
Do you see a lot of Speedos? “Actually, not so much anymore. If we do see Speedos it is a probably a European traveler.”
Are people looking better? “The new surf wear is board shorts and that’s pretty common. We see a lot more skin now than we used to. But when I was in high school, we had dress standards. I couldn’t even wear a T-shirt in high school, so there has been a difference in a public attitude in attire...”
How about changes at the beach? “A lot of times our parking areas change. The geology of the beach changes from time to time with our storms. The demographic of the beach changes a little bit from time to time. I guess one of the biggest things is the accessibility for people in the inner city. Our highway system has gotten a lot better since I was a child.We have better ways for more people to get around.We see a lot more inner-city
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 29, 2006. Read the original PDF.