A cry from lifeguards for a lifeline.
This is what lifeguard Karl Hernadez is begging National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds for, as the lifeguard fraternity says they continue to buckle under pressure to do their jobs with little manpower and equipment.
It’s a lifeline the lifeguards have been begging for.
Hernandez, a patrol captain at the popular north coast Maracas Beach beach facility called on Hinds to remove the lifeguards from under his jurisdiction, following widespread flooding in areas along the beach yesterday.
“I ain’t hiding. I don’t think the lifeguard is in the right place under National Security...either move we or move Hinds. We don’t even get to talk to him,” Hernandez said, as water backed up due to heavy rainfall and hazardous sea alerts.
Hernandez said they have seven lifeguard towers on Maracas Beach but only three are functional.
“We can only use three towers. All of them want heavy repairs.”
Hernandez said of all the national security ministers they worked under, Hinds is the most “disappointing,” stating that their plights have been falling on deaf ears for years.
In Las Cuevas, he said there were no lifeguard facilities.
Last week, he said, 18-year-old Jada Wilson drowned while bathing at Tyrico Bay.
He said lifeguards no longer work at that beach.
“So they just closed the beach. It was blocked and eventually like people unblocked it. So, I just want the public to know the lifeguards are not responsible.”
Hernandez said the Government has not been taking its citizens seriously.
“But once they call us we still have to send the manpower across. Anytime somebody drowning across there (Tyrico) we does fly across there in two twos.”
The lifeguards would use jet skis to get across.
“To run the jet skis we need about two men. We don’t have the manpower for this.”
The lifeguards, he said, also had an ambulance at Maracas Beach and Las Cuevas beaches.
“Then for some reason, they don’t want to hire anybody they done with the ambulance. So we just keep going down, down, down and down. Because right now we are down to zero in lifeguards.”
Now, Hernandez said they can not respond to emergencies.
