Kids Learn the ABCs of Beach Safety

The students like today’s guest speaker. Casual short-sleeve shirt and Dockers pants. Sunglasses around his neck. Black thong sandals. Very cool. Very hip. No boring subjects here. Today’s topic is the beach and surfing and summer.

The 80 or so fourth- through seventh-grade students from Prince of Peace School aren’t taking notes, but you can bet they’ll remember what this Newport Beach lifeguard says: If you’re ever caught in a riptide, try to swim parallel with it, not into it. Use lots of sunscreen at the beach. Don’t ever dive head-first into the ocean.

And if you’re over your head in the water “and a lifeguard swims up to you, please, please don’t grab onto us,” Chris Hill deadpans. “You’d drag us down with you.”

With summer around the corner, lifeguards around Orange County are making the rounds to schools to give safety tips on having fun in what could be a most dangerous place--the ocean.

On this day, Hill, 25, is telling the students what they can do to prevent drownings and beach-related injuries.

Some of the advice is simple enough: Take stock of your immediate surroundings; broken glass and needles can kill you just as easily as a riptide can. Keep a lookout for the changing tides. Pay attention to the flag system: a green flag means you can go into the water; yellow indicates caution; red tells you the water condition is dangerous.

Just remember, Hill tells his audience, as fun as the beach is, it can also be deadly.

Every year, Newport Beach averages 5,000 to 6,000 beach-related rescues, with 85% of them occurring in the summer, according to officials with the city’s Fire and Marine Department. Just six weeks ago, a 24-year-old Costa Mesa man drowned after he was caught in a rip current off the Balboa Peninsula.

“I’m not trying to scare you guys, because the beach is the funnest place in the world,” Hill says. “But you have to learn to respect it; you have to learn to observe it.”

As much as they are interested in what Hill has to say, the students also have their own questions.

“Has a lifeguard ever been eaten by a shark?”

Not in Newport Beach, no. There are none in the area.

“Can saltwater heal your wound?”

No, just the opposite. It will sting your wound.

“What about seals?”

What about them?

“They bite.”

“So don’t touch them,” Hill advises. “Leave them alone. Don’t poke at them. They may make funny noises and they smell funny. But it is their home. It’s not ours.”

Before he leaves, Hill has one last piece of advice for the students, most of whom are frequent beach-goers. Wherever they are on the beach, look for the nearest lifeguard tower to see what number it is.

“That’s your area, just in case you’re lost,” Hill says. “You’ll know where to get back.”

At the end of the session, 10-year-old Ryan Underwood, mulls over the lesson of the day.

“I learned how to be safe at the beach so I could have a good time,” he says. “And if I get into trouble, I know what to do: not hang onto the lifeguard.”