Steve Burns
WMAL.com
OCEAN CITY, MD — (WMAL) An increased risk of rip currents on Sunday led to 75 people being rescued from the waters off Ocean City.
“If we hadn’t come to work early, there would’ve been some people who would’ve died yesterday morning,” said Butch Arbin, the Ocean City Beach Patrol Captain. He said the Coast Guard got involved in one particularly bad incident that sent people to the hospital, but for the most part, nobody was close to drowning.
“During the day, we had about 75 rescues. Because of the rip current threat, we were keeping people in knee-deep water but still ended up having to make some rescues,” Arbin said.
He said the combination of a lackluster side-to-side current along with big wave action thanks to offshore storms led to widespread rip currents up and down the shore.
“We’re not going to wait. Most of what we’re doing is preventative-type of rescues as opposed to serious ones, though we do have those too,” Arbin said. “95% of the rescues we do in Ocean City are rip current-related.”
He uses the acronym “RIP” as a guide for what you should do if you’re caught in a rip current. “R stands for relax – don’t panic. The I stands for ‘I need help.’ Let people around you know you need assistance. The P stands for parallel,” for where you should try to swim. Arbin said the width of a rip current is usually no wider than your average backyard pool.
Copyright 2015 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (Photo: Town of Ocean City/Flickr)
