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Water rescue teams put daring, skill on display
By Terry Rodgers SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER October 3, 2003 CARLSBAD—Move over X-Games, there's a new kid on the block. Fire and emergency response crews from San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles gathered yesterday in Carlsbad for what they said was the first competition between swift-water rescue teams. Like the wacky competitions featured on cable TV, the inaugural Rigg International Swiftwater Challenge was oddly entertaining. Competitors excelled in skills you wouldn't normally see, except perhaps on "Rescue 911" or "Baywatch." They threw weighted rescue lines at helmeted humans bobbing like discarded beer coolers down the fast-moving outflow from the Encina power plant. They maneuvered inflatable rescue craft in zig-zag patterns, the tandem paddlers arching their backs as they strained against the current. They swam diagonally across the channel, racing to touch a series of white sand bags laid out along the edge of the rip rap jetty like the bases on a baseball diamond. The point of this adrenaline rush was to raise money for the Higgins and Langley Memorial Awards, which amount to a sort of Medal of Honor for heroic deeds in the field of swift-water rescue. "It's the first event I've seen that pits river rescue teams against each other," said one of the judges, San Diego Lifeguard Lt. Brant Bass. "We consider swift-water rescue to be the most dangerous part of our job. And this is a good opportunity to see how everyone else does it." Another judge, Deputy Fire Chief Steve Miller of Montgomery County in Maryland, a past recipient of the Higgins and Langley Memorial Award, said the competition seemed to build confidence among the participants and inspire a lot of camaraderie. As the competition progressed, the judges came up with ideas to make it more interesting and exciting in the future. "I'd like to see it played out in a channel with more midstream obstacles – rocks and whatnot," Miller said. While he was looking to make the competition even more demanding, others may not be so sure. Bass said some agencies, including those in San Diego, decided not to field teams this year because of concerns about injuries and liability. Vendors from companies that manufacture all kinds of water safety and rescue equipment hovered on the sidelines, discreetly marketing their products. Among them was John Strain of Life-Safer Inc., a San Diego firm that makes a unique life buoy that is thrown like a Frisbee and is attached to 100 feet of polypropylene rope. Strain said he's trying to market the "personnel retriever" to public safety agencies because first-line responders to a water or ice-break rescue are at high risk for drowning. One spectator watching with keen excitement was Nancy Rigg, a Los Angeles resident known as the "mother of swift-water rescue" and the person for whom the contest is named. For more than two decades, Rigg has prodded and prompted public safety agencies nationwide to include swift-water rescue teams. In 1980, Rigg watched helplessly as her fiancé, Earl Higgins, drowned while attempting to rescue a child who was swept down the flood-swollen Los Angeles River. Nationwide, nearly 5,000 people die from drowning each year. Many could be saved if more public safety agencies make swift-water rescue training a priority, she said. Today, the competition moves to the Tecolote Shores area of Mission Bay, where the contestants will test their skills using personal watercraft (Jet Skis) and rescue sleds. The director of this phase of the competition, Shawn Alladio, who trains lifeguards worldwide on lifesaving techniques using personal watercraft, said professionals in the swift-water rescue field are fun but extremely competitive. "They are people who can run off adrenaline and endurance," she said. "They are people who can stay calm under pressure and work together as a team. "And they're also like the little boy that grew up playing with a toy fire truck and they have grown up to live that dream." Terry Rodgers: 619-542-4566; terry.rodgers@uniontrib.com |
CHARLIE NEUMAN / Union-Tribune Andrew Wright (right) "rescued" teammate Brian Erickson in one of the events in a swift-water rescue competition. Fire and emergency response crews from San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles competed. |