THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 12, 1994 TAG: 9406100174
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARGARET TALEV, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940612 LENGTH: KILL DEVIL HILLS
One photograph shows a deteriorating corpse that washed up on the Nags Head coast more than a month after a fatal sailing accident in Virginia Beach.
{REST} Others show guards rescuing victims of heart attacks, drug overdoses and water sports injuries.
And then there are the fun snapshots: Tan bodies perched in high wooden stands. A male lifeguard who couldn't stay awake until the end of a party, and got painted with baby blue eye shadow and hot pink lipstick by prank-playing pals.
The president and director of Lifeguard Beach Services, Bob Gabriel, shows his guards the pictures to get this message across: Being a lifeguard is dangerous, frustrating and physically and mentally draining. Guards must risk their own lives for others eight hours a day, from Memorial Day to Labor Day. But the job can also be a lot of fun.
Last summer, Gabriel's guards were involved in 94 water rescues, two diving rescues and three boat rescues. They assisted paramedics with 74 medical calls. There were two fatalities on the beaches manned by Gabriel's guards last summer. Both were heart attacks. None of Gabriel's guards has ever died on the job.
Occasionally, however, swimmers die. Supervisor Pat Craddock remembers a fruitless 1992 rescue attempt as the experience that had the ``most impact'' on him as a lifeguard. That summer was his fourth as a guard. He was at the check-in station on Clark Street when he got a call from the guard stationed behind the Comfort Inn.
``It was a calm day in the middle of the summer,'' he recalled. ``Water's real calm. The beaches were fairly crowded, but it was certainly not a day that you'd anticipate having rescues.''
A man who spoke broken English had come up to the Comfort Inn station and told the guard that his 29-year-old son had gone underwater and never come up. The father was so agitated that he could not clearly describe where he'd last seen his son.
When Craddock arrived, seconds after the call, guards were already in the water doing a search pattern. Reading their hand signals from a dune, he took a Jetski into the ocean and started skiing around the guards.
``The next thing I know I turn around and I see some kid on a boogie board screaming,'' said Craddock. ``The guy who was missing had washed up on it, so he was basically laying across this kid.
``We got him up on the beach, and he died. It was too late, we tried CPR, everything. The ambulances were down there, we did everything we possibly could, but he just didn't survive. He'd been in the water too long and his lungs were full of water and it was just too late.
``The feelings I had after that were really odd,'' Craddock said. ``The way things had worked that day, we could not have done it any better. Usually, typical things happen. The Jetski won't start, people are in your way . . . That particular day, everything went as smooth as we could have possibly wanted it.
``. . . That night it was not a happy night. You can't help but start criticizing yourself, `Could I have done something better?' Of course the lifeguards . . . felt like they had failed even though they were in their stands watching the water. That night we simply went to somebody's house and tried to have a crisis meeting.''
``The next day on the beach you get a real strange feeling. It's kind of a reality check . . . like it's the first day you ever set foot on the beach. You really start realizing how serious this job is, it's not just, you know, talking to the girls and getting this good suntan and laying back and being the center of attention on the beach. You finally realize that you have a lot more responsibility than other people think.''
For some of Gabriel's guards, a job that started out as a fun way to make money between college semesters has become a way of life. Captain Jamie Faison is back for his seventh season, and although he jokes that one day he will get a real job, he takes this one quite seriouly. This year Faison will stay on year-round in case of a beach emergency in the off-season.
The hours, while long, are spent on the beach, in the sun. There is a close camaraderie between guards, on the job and after hours. Most guards live in one of three houses Gabriel found for them to rent this summer or in rooms in the back half of the Ocean View Motel.
After work, many of the guards like to run, rollerblade or lift weights. And the reports are true - they love to party. Some frequent the local bars, such as Atlantis, and the veterans pass along to first-timers vital information, such as which place has which drink specials which night.
Other guards, particularly those too young to get into bars, party in their homes. Of the 36 guards and four supervisors, only four are female. The girls say the guys are always telling them to bring along some friends and even up the odds a bit.
Whatever they do in their free time, however, their minds and bodies must be clear by early morning.
It's a Thursday morning, less than a week after Memorial Day, the day the final cuts were made for jobs, and the chosen were sent to their posts. By 8:30 a.m., two-thirds have checked in. The rest have the day off. An hour later, Faison begins the roll call by radio, and is answered by each of the guards posted at 24 stands. They sound-off in turn, ``Ten-eight.'' That's their code for ``We're at our stands, ready for duty.''
Seventeen 8-foot-tall wooden chairs, topped by royal blue umbrellas, are imbedded along the 4.5 miles of beach in Kill Devil Hills, within sight of one another. Gabriel's guards also oversee beaches in Duck, on Roanoke Island and at the Nags Head Inn.
Gabriel, who has directed the company for 11 years, explained what type of person he'll fill his stands with each summer: ``I don't give a damn if you're black, if you're purple, if you're crippled, if you're a woman - as long as you meet the criteria in the book.'' He holds out a copy of the 38-page manual of company policy, goals and standards. ``I just want people who are mentally and physically capable.''
He has some ground rules. He reserves the right to perform random drug tests. And no cigarette smoking.
None of the guards smokes. At least not in uniform, or in front of him.
Applicants, who must be at least 17 years old, submit a photograph and fill out a questionnaire on personal and medical history. Gabriel interviews those who pass the first stage, evaluating them on judgment, personality, intelligence, appearance and attitude.
The last phase - the three-day training - is less a competition than a final test to make sure the applicants are as physically and ethically capable as Gabriel wants. He makes this decision by putting candidates through a 1.5-mile run, a 500-meter swim and a classroom session on first aid, hazardous materials, hygiene, ethics and expectations.
Faison estimated that just over one-third of those who applied were hired this summer.
Although most are attractive, Gabriel said being gorgeous is not a prerequisite.
He said he is disappointed with the portrayal of lifeguards as flaky, air-headed, party-animal sex objects. Lifeguards generally do not get credit for the ambitious and intellectual young people that they so often are, he said.
But it can be hard to get past the superficial - the healthy-looking, tightly defined bodies, leathery brown skin, sun-bleached hair, muscles firm and sometimes bulging.
And gazing at the lithe bodies atop most of the stands, you'd have no way of knowing that the trim auburn-haired guard on your stretch of beach wants to be a neurological researcher in New Zealand, or that two buddies at neighboring chairs just spent four years doing search and rescue for the Navy. A part-time development designer for Phillip Morris Tobacco rescued a father and son two summers ago.
Why would students with promising careers choose lifeguarding rather than summer school or an internship that could bring them valuable connections? Some take the job for one last carefree and tan summer before plunging into adulthood.
That's what first-year guard Julie Enwright had in mind. The 21-year-old Virginia Tech graduate did accounting work for the past two summers, and plans to go to work for an accounting firm in Washington, D.C., this September.
``I was like `God, mom, I want a non-thinking job where I can meet some nice looking guy,' '' she said. But by the end of the first week, she found herself setting up a computerized bookkeeping system for Gabriel. And she says the accounting practice she'll get this summer can help her when she begins her career.
``From the business point, a lot more goes into this than you'd think,'' she said.
There's not a lot of money in it for the guards. Each gets a base salary of about $5.50 per hour, according to Gabriel. But they also get a commission for the chairs and umbrellas they rent to beachgoers from their stands.
Equipment rentals bring in money - between 30 and 40 percent of his income, Gabriel has said. But other costs keep going up, and the price tag on his contracts have upset some local officials and residents.
In 1992, when Gabriel asked Kill Devil Hills for a 63 percent price increase for the next year, the town considered dropping him, and starting the town's own municipal lifeguard service or contracting with the Nags Head Ocean Rescue Service - as do Kitty Hawk and Southern Shores.
But Gabriel and Kill Devil Hills have continued to reach compromises, and Gabriel contended that the service he provides is different than the Nags Head Service, which utilizes mostly roving guards.
This year, Gabriel's contract with Kill Devil Hills is $154,880, a 5.5 percent increase from the previous year's. ``When I bought this service we had two diesel trucks and two radios,'' he said. ``Now we have to have sophisticated equipment.''
That equipment includes several pickup trucks and four wheel rovers, a Jetski and boat; a radio, uniforms, jackets, flotation devices for each guard and supervisor; and a camera, computer, fax, photocopier and three phone lines. Next week, Gabriel said, he will have the technology to receive instant printouts of satellite weather.
Most lifeguards don't care about all that.
They are interested in saving lives and having a fun summer.
And part of that fun is their relationship with beachgoers.
Ben Doyle, a freckled University of Virginia sophomore with a blond bowl haircut, could pass for Dennis the Menace as he tells one of his favorite anecdotes:
A gentleman is combing the beach frantically with his wife and family. Finally, he approaches Doyle, looks up at the stand, and says, ``If you see my hairpiece floating around in the water, will you grab it for me?''
James ``Bubba'' Griffin, 21, said he loves the give-and-take he has with the people who come to his section of the beach. On the chalkboard affixed to his stand, next to the daily temperature and tide listings, Griffin likes to leave notes. The note one day read ``Will do tricks for food,'' and two parents and their young son brought him lunch: a bag of chips, a liter of soda and a sub.
What's the trick, they wanted to know. ``Give me the food,'' he said, only then letting on that he had never intended to perform any sort of stunt. ``I tricked you,'' he explained.
That kind of silliness, some flirtation and some advice about the water and the sun make the time pass until 5:30 p.m., when the guards are off duty, and free to do pretty much as they please.
But on this particular Thursday evening, they are reminded why they are there. At 6:15, they meet on the beach to practice Signal-Threes, or ocean rescues. As a brisk wind shifts across the sand, the guards line up next to a stand, facing the cold, choppy water.
One after another, they climb the chair to simulate a rescue.
Each makes the call to a supervisor by radio, describing the location of the ``victim'' he or she will attempt to save. They dismount, grab a buoy from the sand and race into the ocean, where they must swim 20 yards to make the save.
Some of the first-year guards hang back, struck by the seriousness of what they are training for.
It has not been long since they saw those photographs, including the one of the corpse.
by CNB