An­na-Lisa Paul

Life­guards at Mara­cas Beach yes­ter­day urged the Gov­ern­ment to stop play­ing Russ­ian Roulette with beach­go­ers’ lives. They said they felt adrift and cast aside as the se­vere lack of per­son­nel was ham­per­ing op­er­a­tions at beach­es along the North Coast.

Pa­trol cap­tain at the Mara­cas Bay Life­guard Unit Karl Her­nan­dez said while the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty had tak­en ad­di­tion­al ef­forts to boost the man­pow­er re­sources on the streets for Car­ni­val, no such at­ten­tion had been paid to en­sur­ing the na­tion’s beach­es were sim­i­lar­ly pa­trolled.

Wor­ried as he looked out at the crowd­ed Mara­cas Beach yes­ter­day, he es­ti­mat­ed that be­tween Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, more than 20,000 peo­ple had vis­it­ed north coast beach­es.

In­di­cat­ing his ex­pec­ta­tion that the tra­di­tion­al Ash Wednes­day cool-down would at­tract a bumper crowd, Her­nan­dez warned yes­ter­day, “The wa­ter not nice, we have re­al cur­rent.”

Frus­trat­ed over their in­abil­i­ty to bring on ad­di­tion­al staff dur­ing this Car­ni­val pe­ri­od, he said, “I think the Gov­ern­ment tak­ing peo­ple life light­ly, be­cause they call out all po­lice, all prison of­fi­cers, yet they couldn’t do it with the life­guards.”

The call for an in­creased pres­ence of life­guards was not a new one Her­nan­dez said, as he claimed the last in­take was 13 years ago.

“We re­al un­der-staffed right now. Thank­ful­ly, we have the jet ski that can re­al­ly help out with the man­pow­er but oth­er­wise, we un­der re­al pres­sure,” he added.

Op­er­at­ing with a to­tal of 11 life­guards yes­ter­day on a two-shift ro­ta­tion, Her­nan­dez said they were hav­ing par­tic­u­lar chal­lenges with the Span­ish-speak­ing vis­i­tors whom he de­scribed as ig­nor­ing in­struc­tions.

He said, “You blow­ing the whis­tle and they don’t lis­ten.”

Ad­mit­ting the cur­rent crop of life­guards were over­worked, Her­nan­dez said with thou­sands ex­pect­ed to de­scend on the North Coast on Wednes­day, he was wor­ried just how it would work out as there were on­ly 11 life­guards ros­tered.

How­ev­er, he said, “Over­time is op­tion­al and be­cause we are so un­der-staffed, they are over­worked. Even self they don’t come, I can’t blame them. There just isn’t any­one to re­place them.”

At Tyri­co Bay, there are no life­guards as­signed.

He said pa­trols are con­duct­ed dur­ing the day, where they usu­al­ly cau­tion bathers as to the dan­gers.

But, he added, “It come like Russ­ian Roulette...who you go save?”

“The most I can do is call the peo­ple and talk to them and let them know there are no life­guards, and let the jet-ski make some pa­trols and hope every­thing is al­right.”

Ky­la Browne, of Diego Mar­tin, said she opt­ed to vis­it the beach yes­ter­day as she felt the need, “for a calm en­trance in­to this week.”

Cradling her dog Rusty as a light driz­zle sent some beach­go­ers search­ing for shel­ter, Browne said, “I am just here re­lax­ing.”

She said it was a nice change to see chil­dren and par­ents en­joy­ing the sand and surf.

Hav­ing donned match­ing swim-suits as part of their plan to vis­it the beach for three con­sec­u­tive days Shant­tal Lo­ba­to and her moth­er Is­sa Lo­ba­to soaked up the peek­ing sun­shine be­tween the in­ter­mit­tent rain­fall.