Dive team's goal is rescue, not recovery BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer It was high tide on Brick Beach 3 and the drowning man had already slipped beneath the cobalt waves. PHOTOS BY ERIC SUCAR staff Above, Brick Beach lifeguard dive team members Anthony Nash and John Menafra grab their compact air tanks and other gear during a drill Aug. 15. Below, members of the Brick Beach lifeguard dive team form a human chain during an emergency drill on to find a submerged victim off Brick Beach 3. The six lifeguards who make up the Brick Beach dive team plunged into the rough surf. They had a very narrow window of time to find him. Fortunately, they were able to pull the man from the sandy bottom to shore, before it was too late. The save took place last week, shortly after 9 a.m. But this time, the "victim" really wasn't submerged and wasn't in trouble. He was Brick Beach Capt. Daniel Santaniello and the save was part of a weekly "red alert" drill for the soon-to-be nationally certified lifeguard team. So far, the dive team hasn't actually had to use its "rapid dive system" equipment in an actual rescue of a submerged person. "Knock on wood," Santaniello said. But the summer of 2007 has been fraught with treacherous rip currents. Brick Beach guards pulled four people from the surf on the morning of Aug. 14, including a six-year-old boy. "He was really panicked, screaming and everything," Santaniello said. And longtime lifeguard Capt. Donovan Brown is happy to have the extra protection of a squad trained in dive rescues and the equipment they need for Brick's three oceanfront beaches. "We are rescue divers, not recovery divers," he said. "If you do lose somebody, you have maybe four to five minutes to find them. With scuba gear, you can stay on the bottom and find them, maybe save somebody's life. It has nothing to do with trying to recover somebody." Brick is one of only seven towns in the state to have lifeguards who are nationally certified by the United States Lifesaving Association. The township has been a member of the local chapter of USLA for many years. "Last year it came to our attention that due to the rigorous nature of our lifeguard training, we have not only met USLA requirements, we have exceeded them," Andrea Zapcic, the township's recreation director said. "The only thing keeping us from national level certification was the dive team." The lifeguard staff met during the offseason. Six members of Brick's 54-person team decided they wanted to take the dive team course and become nationally certified. So they approached township officials about footing the $7,000 bill for the equipment. The guards agreed to pay the $300 training fee out of their own pockets, Brown said. The six dive team members are John Menafra, 19, Anthony Nash, 18, Thomas Brow, 18, Anthony Tignola, 20, Ashley Hessenkemper, 23, and Santaniello, who has been a Brick lifeguard for 15 of his 29 years. They trained at the Shore Scuba Center on Brick Boulevard. Shore Scuba's instructors are certified by the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) and the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI), a worldwide lifesaving organization. The six lifeguards trained in open water, a pool and had classroom instruction, Kenneth Hoffmann, a trainer with Shore Scuba. "This particular shop is very focused on safety," he said. "Two students to one instructor. Being a NAUI shop, we are able to go above and beyond the minimum actually recommended. We were able to focus highly on the rescue skills for them." The dive team uses a small tank known as a modified buoyancy compensator. The cylinder holds 20 cubic fee of "normal air," not oxygen, and is tailored for underwater rescues, Hoffman said. "It's intended for a short time underwater," he said. "It's less cumbersome, so you can retrieve an unconscious person or a distressed person." It only takes a lifeguard between 30 to 40 seconds to don the diving gear, Brown said. "It's on, you are ready to go," he said. "Two buckles." A Brick lifeguard's day begins on the beach at 8:45 a.m. The guards train before the beach goers start to arrive. For Brown, there is no such thing as too much training. They train every day of the season, which runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. "We are actually guarding while we are training," he said. "Some people get a little upset that we train too much. You can't make everybody happy, but we can try to make everyone safe. We invite the people to come down and watch our training." No one has drowned on a Brick municipal beach in the 34 years Brown has been on the job. It's a record he would like to keep. The lifeguards saved 12 people caught in one rip current three weeks ago, he said. "They are waist deep, and two seconds later they are in a rip," Brown said. "Things like that happen all the time. Our guards reacted very quickly. We see somebody in a rip, we go get them. We don't wait. You are never wrong if you go." And Brown has a request for all visitors to Brick beaches - don't go in the water when the guards are not on duty. "People just don't understand how dangerous the ocean is," Brown said. "We do. When we close the beach up, we make an announcement to please not enter the water. We put red flags up. The ocean is not a pool. It's not a lake. It's dangerous."