VERO BEACH – Next to common sense, lifeguards are the best defense against disaster on our area beaches. Nonetheless, despite reports of all-time high park attendance and almost daily heroics, cost cutting measures by the City have resulted in reductions in guarded beach hours and the underfunding of equipment.
Fortunately, the safety of the public is of paramount importance to the lifeguards watching over an ever increasing number of tourists and residents flocking to local beaches, and in August, 2011 they banded together to form the Vero Beach Lifeguard Association. Fundraising initiatives since then have raised money for essential equipment and have helped to increase public awareness.
Over the Labor Day weekend the VBLA hosted back-to-back fundraisers. The first occurred Saturday evening at the Blue Star Wine Bar, with the unveiling of two 2013 VBLA calendars. One for the ladies is filled with VBLA male lifeguards, looking tanned, buff and ready for prime time. The other, for the guys, is filled with a bevy of bathing beauties – female lifeguards, wives and friends.
On Sunday, Waldo’s and Sharkbait Beach Gear Rentals hosted the second annual VBLA Poker Run Bar Crawl. Participants spent the afternoon playing 5-card stud, accumulating their poker hands at Waldo’s, Costa d’Este, Mulligan’s and the Vero Beach Hotel and Spa, led along the way by “Kiss-Mix Girls” and “Sharkbait Hotties.”
The calendars, sold online at www.VBLA.org, will be available at all their fundraising events. It will also be available at Waldo’s and the Snack Shack, and they hope eventually at other beachside establishments as well.
“I want to direct your attention to August,” laughed Mr. August himself, Erik Toomsoo, VBLA president.
The calendars were the brainchild and creation of Tatum Bacchi, a photographer who just this year launched her Vero Beach based business, Tab Photoworks.
“She was gracious enough to do all this pro bono to help us out,” said Toomsoo. Pointing to a CD of photos running on loop on a laptop he added, “You have to look at the outtakes; they’re pretty funny.”
“I was talking with Tim Capra, trying to come up with fundraising ideas,” said Bacchi, referencing a lifeguard and VBLA board member. “It kind of started off as a joke and just snowballed from there. It all came together very, very quickly.”
Toomsoo said with a smile of the participants, “We’re really putting ourselves out there. But it’s for a good cause.”
“They were all great; especially the women,” added Bacchi. The shots of the women mostly took place at sunrise because of the beauty of the sun over the ocean but she said, “Everybody was a really good sport.”
Money raised will help the VBLA purchase medical supplies, and other apparatus unfunded by the City. The hope is to raise enough to also purchase an ATV to help with ocean rescues.
They currently utilize a 1985 ATV on loan from the police department; a one-seat vehicle which cannot be used to transport victims. Rescues often happen outside guarded areas, making a rapid response even more difficult.
The need for lifeguards and proper equipment was heightened by the May shark attack on a German tourist, where the quick actions of Toomsoo and others served to save both life and limb.
The lack of an efficient ATV required that she be hoisted onto a back-board and carried by rescuers from the beach at the Driftwood, where the attack occurred, to the south end of Humiston Beach.
Yet despite the shark attack, the Humiston Beach guarded hours were reduced 14 days earlier than last year, leaving swimmers on Labor Day weekend, one of the busiest of the year, without ample protection.
“This whole shark thing was publicity for us, but we save on average three people each month from drowning and that doesn’t get into the paper. Last year we had 22 rescues; this year we had six just in May.”
Much of a lifeguard’s job is taking preventive actions to keep the public safe. Raising funds to do their job efficiently is just one more approach to that end.
“What the VBLA is all about is not asking taxpayers for money; we’re being proactive and doing it ourselves,” said Toomsoo. “We appreciate folks like Tatum who are taking their time to help us out. Dave Farrow did those paintings for us. We’re appreciative of all these folks helping us to raise money.”
Vero Beach 32963 profiled Farrow, a general contractor and artist whose prints of painted scenes of Jaycee, Humiston and South Beach are being sold to benefit the VBLA, in its July 12 issue.
The VBLA’s most recent monthly Beach Report shows 81,405 visitors to the beaches of Jaycee Park, Humiston Park and South Beach Park in July 2012. That month, lifeguards took 2,268 preventive actions, and responded to 51 medical incidents, three ocean rescues and one missing person. Most of the Vero Beach lifeguards, who also rotate to the City owned Leisure Square pool, are also trained as either EMT or as first responders.
The 2013 VBLA calendars are $19.99 and can be ordered at www.vbla.org.
