The city of South Haven’s new lifeguard program is officially up and running, with the team taking to South Beach for the first time in 25 years Memorial Day weekend.
The return of the program has been years in the making as the families of drowning victims and Great Lakes safety advocates worked to convince city leaders it was the right move. Dave Benjamin of the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project tells us he’s been pushing for the return of lifeguards in South Haven since 2012. He was there Monday with family members of drowning victims to greet the new lifeguards.
“We gathered around 10 a.m. so we could meet, kind of impromptu organized, and we waited for the lifeguards to go on duty at 11 a.m. And when they came out — I don’t know if they were expecting it or not — but when they came out as a group to take their first watch, they were greeted with applause,” Benjamin said. “I’m kind of choking up a little bit, you know. Something they work on for so long that it kind of comes to fruition.”
Benjamin says it was a big moment to see the program actually become a reality.
“For most of us who’ve been working on this, until we physically see them on the water with their toes in the sand, it wasn’t a done deal for us until yesterday.”
Benjamin says since South Haven ended the previous lifeguard program in 2001, the city’s had 12 drownings and multiple lawsuits. He believes had lifeguards been in place when many of those incidents occurred, tragedy could have been avoided.
“Only one of them happened when red flags were flying. It also happened around 9 p.m., which lifeguards would have been off duty at that time. But 11 of those drownings, I believe, would have been prevented if they had lifeguards on duty.”
So, why does Benjamin think the calls for a renewed lifeguard program finally produced results this time?
“I would say the continued pressure from family members of drowning victims finally guilted the ones that were opposed to lifeguards to finally succeed. This is kind of a little of a hot topic for us, but we’ve had city council members that were pro-lifeguard and supported lifeguards, but they’re usually outnumbered by the naysayers, and it just took time to get the right people in place, I guess, for the city to vote the right people in place. ”
Benjamin tells us there have been several times over the years where the effort gained momentum only to sputter out when the winter arrived. He says with this success, the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project will continue pushing for more lifeguard programs at beaches around Michigan.
“The chief of the United States Life Saving Association said it real simple. If you don’t want to have lawsuits for drownings, then don’t have drownings. You have lifeguards. And it doesn’t get any simpler than that, you know. The thing about lifeguards is they are the gold standard of water safety. They are already established, commonly accepted water safety best practices.”
The Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project has been calling for lifeguards to be a feature at all lakefront Michigan state parks that charge for admission and have indoor plumbing in their restrooms, something the group will continue pushing for. Meanwhile, Benjamin says the return of lifeguards to South Beach in South Haven is welcome news, but something that “should have been done a long time ago.”
“We can go back in time and say if they would have listened in 2006 when there was a drowning of a 17-year-old boy on the 4th of July, well, then 11 more drownings could have been avoided.”
Photo: A South Haven lifeguard this past weekend. Courtesy of Tom Renner.
