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...Hawaii Lifeguards Are The Real Thing! By:
Kathryn
Drury If
you think pulling a 150-pound body out of the surf takes strength and
courage, try teaching a summer program for a group of hormone-addled
teenagers. Shannon Clancey does both, and in doing so, has become a role
model for young people all over Oahu. Shannon, a 27-year-old lifeguard
with the Ocean Safety and Lifeguard Services Division (OSLSD), is one of
the elite corps who protects Hawaii’s beaches. The job demands the
physicality of a professional athlete, the speed and skill of an emergency
medical technician, and the patience of a babysitter - slathered with
sunblock and rolled into bright yellow shirt. The
OSLSD is part of the City and County of Honolulu’s Emergency Services
Department, which also encompasses firefighters and ambulance crews. With
the patient, intense gaze of predators, the staff of 180 ocean safety
officers scans the horizon from their positions along 50 miles’ of sand.
It’s not about hardbodies or endless summers; duties include preventing
injury and drowning, administering emergency life support, enforcing beach
regulations and giving first aid. According
to the department of health, more than 38 people drown in Hawaii each
year. Every year, between 800 and 1,000 people are rescued from the waters
around Oahu. A
key part of the job is to interact with the public, advising visitors and
kamaaina alike on ocean conditions and helping them decide if that
particular beach is really the best fit for their abilities. For example,
one pale and clueless family that Shannon approached at body-boarding
mecca Sandy Beach told her, “We’ve never been here before, but it’s
just like Lake Michigan!” She laughs ruefully as she recounts the story.
“I’m like NO! It’s not like Lake Michigan. This is a huge ocean,
coming up onto a steep shore break.” Compared
with lifeguarding the placid, chlorinated waters of a pool, lifeguarding
the ocean is far more rigorous. “You can’t make people not go in the
water, unless the beach is closed,” says Shannon. “And you’re
dealing with all sorts of people, especially tourists. I do enjoy talking
to the public; they only bother me when I’m worried about their safety
and they’re being oblivious. We called it the ‘vacation mentality’ -
they are zoned out and not aware.” With
eyes the same aquamarine hue as the water off Kailua, Shannon looks as if
she’s watched the sea so intently that it now dwells within her.
“Spotting a swimmer in trouble is instinctual,” she muses.
“There’s a face they get. A look of concern. They’re not smiling
anymore.” Born and raised in Kailua in a house five minutes from the
beach, she clocked in a lot of surf time as a kid, first paddling, then
surfing. At 16, she signed up for the junior lifeguard program, run by the
OSLSD. “Then when I was 20, I started to think about ‘where would I
like to be for eight hours a day?’ I knew it wasn’t a desk.” Shannon,
who has a B.A. from Hawaii Pacific University and is taking classes toward
a master’s degree (she’s interested in international business),
nevertheless remains committed to ocean safety. She’s already served as
a lifeguard for six years, and says, “I don’t know if I’ll do this
until retirement, but I plan to do it for a while.” To
apply to become a lifeguard, you must be at least 18 years old, have a
valid Hawaii driver’s license, a high school diploma (or equivalent work
experience), a current American Heart Association or American Red Cross
CPR certificate, lifeguard certification from the Red Cross or the U.S.
Lifesaving Association, and first aid training. “You have to be fairly
responsible and willing to stay in shape,” Shannon adds. Knowing
that she’d have to take the rigorous physical performance tests to
become a lifeguard, Shannon trained by running and swimming along Kailua
beach. The grueling requirements include being able to complete a 1,000-
yard run/1,000-yard swim in under 25 minutes; a 500-yard pool swim in
under 10 minutes; a 400-yard rescue-board paddle in under four minutes,
and a 100-yard run/swim/run in under three minutes. (Once you’re in,
there’s no slacking—Oahu’s lifeguards are retested annually.) The
day Shannon took her stamina tests she was one of about eighty people
trying become a lifeguard. Half were tapped for the next stage in the
process: an interview. “They asked us things like ‘are you an ocean
person?’ or about how we’d handle the waves,” she says. Twenty
people were accepted into the class that took three weeks of full-time
training in subjects such as the use of automatic external defibrillators
and handling all-terrain vehicles. Shannon started her ocean safety
officer career at Waikiki beach, which she considers fortunate, “because
a lot of the job is helping and talking to the public, versus Hanauma Bay,
where you have a rescue every day.” Last
year, 12 people – all tourists and all snorkeling – died at Hanauma
Bay, a startling death toll that exceeded the combined total of the past
seven years at that location. It’s even more startling because the bay
is in many places shallow enough to stand up in. “The swimmers there are
total novices, or they haven’t been snorkeling in 10 years,” explains
Shannon. “All it takes is one gulp of water and they panic.” She says
that giving CPR is a “vital, but not common” part of her job. “One
year I had six CPR cases, but that was unusual.” More often, she’s
reaches swimmers before they’ve stopped breathing and assists them with
a flotation tube. In
addition to Hanauma Bay, Shannon works beaches throughout the windward
side. “A lot of the old-timers like to just work one beach, but I enjoy
the variety,” she offers. “I like Waimanalo; it’s so beautiful, and
Sandy Beach, where there’s a lot going on.” As
one of only eight female lifeguards in the department, Shannon faces some
gender-related challenges. Simply having a woman around makes some male
lifeguards less comfortable. For one, it cramps their girl-watching. And
their language. “They’ll swear, and then apologize to me, like
‘there’s a lady present.’ Whatever. Sometimes it’s easier for me
to work the one-man outlooks!” Swimmers can be a little chauvinistic,
too, even while they are slowly sinking – as if being saved by a
woman is somehow emasculating. “It’s bad on their egos,” Shannon
says, “but the worse-off cases are less picky. When you’re dying, you
don’t care who rescues you!” Shannon
also serves as an instructor with the junior lifeguard program, conducted
by the OSLSD. It’s a five-day-long class, with sessions running
throughout the summer, that trains 13 to 17-year-olds on water and beach
safety, ocean rescue and first aid. Lieutenant Mark Cunningham, a veteran
Pipeline lifeguard and world-champion bodysurfer, serves in the training
department of the OSLSD. He says the department is lucky to have Shannon
and notes that 40 percent of the pro-gram’s participants are girls, so
it’s ideal to have female instructors serving as proof that they too can
dive into a career saving lives. At
Kalama Beach, in Kailua, one of the program’s many locations, Shan-non
works her crew of fifteen teens. They stretch, do push-ups, beach runs,
ocean swims. “It’s great,” says 13-year-old Kathryn Schulmeister.
“I signed up because my brother and sister had done the program and
liked it. Shannon is a good teacher because knows what she’s doing and
she keeps everyone’s attention.” Bo Moody, a tall and tanned
14-year-old, is a repeat attendee. “I did the junior lifeguard program
last year, too. Running is a lot easier this year. I’ve been surfing
every day, paddling around, and that helps.” His favorite part of the
program? The Jet Ski rescue training. “At the end
of the summer, there’s a championship held for all the juniors, with
competition on board races, swimming and running. We have kids from Maui,
Kauai, all over,” says Shannon. For young women interested in a career
like hers, Shannon tells them, “Train! Become well rounded in ocean
awareness. Get into a sport like body-surfing or board surfing.”
When she tells people she’s a professional lifeguard, people
inevitably bring up that bastion of bosoms, Bay-watch. True,
it’s the only exposure to ocean lifeguards most civilians have had, but
it’s a little annoying, Shannon concedes. “They mean it as a
compliment, but I try to remind people that Baywatch
is Hollywood. I’m the real thing.” |
