Saving Lives Everyday

All the rescues reported below were made by volunteers. The people being rescued were all caught in the riptide and were far out, most calling for help. Without the bravery of the volunteers, most of these people would have drowned. Note that this report only outlines the rescues that I am personally aware of. I am certain there have been many more than I am reporting.

Dec. 15 - Two separate rescues performed by Surfers. The surfers were alerted by people on the beach to go out.

Dec. 19- Two separate rescues similar to above.

Jan. 31 - Thirteen! Geovani Perez and his employee performed eight of these 13 rescues. One of these rescues was of four people at the same time. They also rescued two sets of two people. Fortunately, we had one of the Rescue Boards available and Geovani had access to it. Both these men have taken our Auxiliary Lifeguard training and are certified.

Ed Croteau rescued two people at the same time and another surfer rescued three different people.

We had signs and red flags out that day and they were ignored. We became proactive and started whistling people out of the water. Otherwise, there would have been even more rescues that day.

Feb. 15- Two more rescues by a surfer. The victims were two women in their early 50's. They are from Michigan. I spoke with the eldest one who was quite traumatized by the incident. She cried in my arms for a few minutes. We were standing in front of the flags that they both ignored!

TOTAL 19 LIVES HAVE BEEN SAVED TO DATE THIS SEASON!

We have a few whistles that we bring to the beach each day. When Geovani is here, he has the first aid kit and the Rescue Board. I check the tide tables every day to ascertain when low tide will occur. The rip tide usually occurs about two hours before low tide. We set the sign and flags out when the rip tide is apparent. Luckily over these past few days, the water has been fairly rough, so people simply are not going in the water.

Most of these rescues were made possible by the generous support of ProSayulita and its many volunteers. The multiple rescues involved the use of the Rescue Board, which was donated by ProSayulita. Last years’ Fiesta raised sufficient funds to buy a Rescue Board for each of our three towers. We have whistles that were donated by Bob Guard. We use them to alert surfers that there is someone in trouble and also to bring people out of the water when they are in a dangerous area. Volunteers in the trailer park have made warning signs and flags, which are posted on days when the rip is bad. All done by Pro Sayulita volunteers. But clearly the most important program is the Auxiliary Life Guard Training Program. This is a yearly event sponsored by ProSayulita and Firefighters Crossing Borders. At these sessions we train Life Guards, Bomberos and Ambulance Attendants. Fortunately, we have the men from Sayulita Surf Co. right on our beach. They are certified Auxiliary Life Guards. Without them and their training, I am sure we would have had a few drownings already this season.