Flash Rip Currents: Hampton Beach Lifeguards Save 100+ Lives In One Week

In the span of one week, Hampton Beach lifeguards rushed into the water to make 144 rescues, 53 in one day alone, because of sudden flash rip currents along the shoreline. WBZ NewsRadio's Kendall Buhl reports.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hampton Beach lifeguards start every morning with seventy five minutes
of intensive training, and New Hampshire Beach Patrol Chief Patrick
Murphy says it really paid off last week when those
lifeguards had to make more than one hundred and forty saves.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
If you go in and make five, six, ten rescues,
you don't get a break. You come back out and
you might have to go right back in, And that
training's made for situations just like this.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Keaping them going back in have been conditions perfect for
flash riptides, dangerously powerful currents that suddenly appear up and
down the beach for just a few minutes at a time.
Even experienced lifeguards can't say where they'll appear next. Murphy's
advice to swimmers.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Always swim your lifeguard.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
This towards the end of the season, check all the
beaches you go to make sure their lifeguards are so
on duty.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
If they're not, find a beach where there are lifeguards.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
With hurricane season here at forty six, conditions in New England,
beaches could continue to be dangerous and unpredictable. From Hampton Beach,
ken will be able to be a busy Boston's news
radio