Any ocean lifeguards here?
 

Here's a nice story but a question to ask. Would the lifeguards actually have left the girl to flounder? Or maybe the hero is embellishing a bit? No doubt though the kid is heroic.

-mail Ann: ASheridan@WCNC.com

WCNC.com

Posted on August 17, 2010 at 11:55 PM

Updated today at 7:23 AM


SHELBY, N.C. -- He made a daring rescue while on vacation, and might be responsible for saving a 6-year-old girl.

19-year-old Alan Riggs was running along Edisto Beach, SC, when he saw a crowd gathering at the shore.

“The beach patrol was keeping us all back, saying no one get in the water. I threw off my sunglasses and peeled off my iPod and ran into the water. The Beach Patrol was yelling, ‘you can’t go in there, there’s nothing you can do to help. I just dove head first into the water,” he said.

Their warnings fell on deaf ears. Riggs, a champion swimmer who trained competitively with the Shark Aquatic Club in Shelby, grew up near the water.

He’s an Eagle Scout and currently a Nursing Major at East Carolina University. He had the perfect resume for a water rescue.

But even more importantly, Riggs is a big brother.

“I thought, I’ve got a little sister. I’d want someone to go out and help my little sister. I just couldn’t leave the little girl out there by herself. It was dark, the tide was going out and the water was rough,” he said.

Riggs said he had little trouble getting to the child. But when he turned around and saw how far he had gone, he admits he was shocked.

“I was like, 'Oh man!' I’ve just got to get her back now.”

The girl instinctively grabbed and pushed him, and Riggs says he was able to get away and tell her to calm down.

“Just hold on to the boogie board and I’m going to get you back to the shore with your family,” he told her.

Riggs said the child said, “OK, OK, just get me back to shore.”

The swim back would be one of the toughest of his life.

“As we were coming back a big wave swept us up to a rock wall. I cupped her and I was smashed up to the rock wall. Once I got close to the beach, the dad ran toward me and took her. He was like ‘Thank you so much for saving my daughter.’”

The girl was treated for a broken leg at a nearby hospital.

“People clapped for me when I got out of the water,” he said.

None of it surprised his parents.

“What he did, he did on his own. I’m not really surprised at all,” said Riggs’ dad, Jim Riggs.

“I am very proud of what he did. But it also frightened me when I thought about what he did because it could’ve been his life also,“ said mom Darlene Riggs.

I'm an ex guard in Wildwood, NJ. I'm not sure what the actual situation was that kept the guards from performing a rescue? From what I read the surf was rough, the tide was going out (possible under tow) and there was a rock wall, but the girl had a boogie board so it doesn't seem there was an immediate danger of drowning and it seems the out going tide would have kept her away from the wall so no danger to the guards. That being said the conditions don't seem insurmountable for a safe successful rescue from a competent beach patrol. I can tell you on our beach (back when I was a guard 25 years ago) there would have been several guards in the water and at least one life boat pulling a rescue line from a shore based vehicle with a winch. After reaching the girl the guards would calm her and wait for the boat if she was a ways out (if close to shore and conditions permitted one guard would hold her and several other guards would swim them back). Otherwise the boat would hand off the line to the guards and the shore based vehicle would winch them in. If the waves or under tow were sever enough the girl would be placed in the boat and rowed back to sure. The guards would be towed in by the winch. Now a days even though there are still life boats much of the life boat activity is now handled by wave-runners for speed.

I think there is more to the story.

Edit- I'm thinking the patrol was keeping people out of the water and away ( which is protocol) to keep from having additional victims. Especially if there is an under tow and from getting in the way of a rescue.