Transcription:
Ocean and Beach Safety. Stay Safe. Learn How

Denise Schnabel (Host): Hey everyone. Welcome to Outer Banks Health, the official podcast series of the Oute Banks Hospital and Medical Group. Each month, we feature guests to discuss not only health-related topics, but community topics as well. We are your hosts, Denise Schnabel.

Wendy Kelly (Host): And I'm Wendy Kelly. Guess who's in the studio today?

Denise Schnabel (Host): Who do we have today Wendy?

Wendy Kelly (Host): Guess.

Denise Schnabel (Host): All right, let's play 20 questions. Is it a resident?

Wendy Kelly (Host): Yes, he is. But he grew up in Nova Scotia.

Denise Schnabel (Host): Wow. That's fancy. Is he an actor?

Wendy Kelly (Host): I don't know. Are you an actor?

Chad Motz: Nope. Not an actor.

Wendy Kelly (Host): Nope. Not an actor, but his hobbies include running sand swimming, surfing, mountain biking and saving people.

Denise Schnabel (Host): Is he wearing red swim trunks and carrying a buoy?

Wendy Kelly (Host): Well, not today, but in fact, we have a Nags Head Ocean rescue captain in the studio to speak about staying safe while enjoying our beautiful beaches and oceans. Denise. Let's welcome, Chad Motz

Denise Schnabel (Host): Hey Chad.

Wendy Kelly (Host): Hi Chad. Thanks for joining us.

Chad Motz: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Denise Schnabel (Host): So Nova Scotia, huh? Let's talk about Nova Scotia. How does one end up or how does one go from Nova Scotia to the outer banks of North Carolina?

Chad Motz: You want the long story or the short story?

Denise Schnabel (Host): Which ever one you want to share, it's your story.

Wendy Kelly (Host): We can edit you.

Chad Motz: So I had a friend in college who I ran cross country with, we were teammates and he grew up lifeguarding. And I guess it was late nineties, he and his friend, were searching out a place that could go that had a longer summer season. So Nova Scotia, they have really nice summer, but it's kind of short. So it's about eight weeks, July and August. And in the infancy of the internet, I got it on and search for a place In the United States where they'd have longer season and make some rescues and have some action.

so night 98, Nags Head and the Outer Banks had a super busy summer. so I've got a flag that's framed in our station that flew over the White House to recognize Nag's ocean rescue. And the heroic acts we did in 1998. Storms, nor'easters off the coast, during the middle of summer, peak of summer. And they had red flags flying, the legend goes like two weeks and people kind of ignored the warnings and they're constantly making rescues and estimates somewhere in the neighborhood of like 700 to 800 rescues within like a 10 day to two week period.

So they read about that on the internet and they applied to come down here and that was 1999. And so I ran across country with this fellow. And a couple of years later, he asked me if I was interested in going lifeguard with him in North Carolina. At the time I spent my summers working at a summer camp, I'd always been interested in life guarding and doing the job, but never had that exposure growing up. So I spent the winter training and went through lifeguard classes and get in the pool and swim in, in order to prepare myself, for this. And so 2001 was my first summer down here.

Denise Schnabel (Host): And you had never been here before?

Chad Motz: Oh, actually that's not true. I ended up driving him and his friend down here in 99. We made a road trip out of it. And drop them off, spend a few days here and hung out. And so I did see the place before coming down here for the first time. But, that's the story

Wendy Kelly (Host): So, your intention was to try out, to be a guard? And so you had never done that before. For being in a pool or a small lake, you came to the Atlantic ocean to try it out.

Chad Motz: Yeah. So, I mean, I spent the winter between 2000 and 2001 doing all the lifeguard classes back in Nova Scotia. And I applied that summer then to work on the beach in Nova Scotia and to apply to work down here and got job offers to come both places. And follow up my friend down here in 2001. And, I plan to come down for one summer and the one summer turned into two and two turned into three and then Never left.

Wendy Kelly (Host): Is your friends still here?

Chad Motz: No. So I also had the blessing, I guess, of, my parents were from the United States and I was born in Canada. So I have dual citizenship, which made the transition for me really easy. He's a career firefighter in Ottawa. And so he's been doing that for the last 20 years.

Denise Schnabel (Host): Oh, so he went basck. Everybody's saving lives,

Wendy Kelly (Host): Well, so now that you're here, how many guards are there on the Outer Banks right now?

Chad Motz: Total like across the entire?

Wendy Kelly (Host): Yeah, I mean, if you know that if you just know Nags Head?

Chad Motz: Nags Head we have about 42, and every season's a little bit different just depending on how our staffing levels go and recruiting and that sort of thing, but anywhere from 40 to 50 guards. And I think most of the agencies, [inaudible] Hills, Corolla, Duct Surf Rescue have about similar staffing levels. And then there are some other smaller agencies, Kitty Hawk, Chick Mechamico and Hatters Island rescue that have lifeguards as well.

Wendy Kelly (Host): So how many try out every summer?

Chad Motz: I think every agency does a little bit different. We accept applications and. They have to do pre-qualification runs swims, and phone interview and that sort of thing. So I typically try to hire about 50 and then there's some attrition that happens, as they get here and go through training and that sort of thing.

Denise Schnabel (Host): Weed them out. Yeah. So down in Hatteras I dunno if I've seen the lifeguard down in Hatteras, they have lifeguards down there?

Chad Motz: So there are, yeah, it's Hatteras Island Rescue squad. it's run by Jack Scarborough. Who's Works with Sheriff's department manages the, dispatch center over there. He's a volunteer chief of the rescue squad down there, and they've got, guards that patrol and vehicles and respond. and then there is one lifeguard Stand. I know at the lighthouse down in Buxton, and that's a contract through Ducks Surf rescue and they have four stands in the park service. One at Kukino beach and then one at Risco and one a Buckston, and one at [

Wendy Kelly (Host): inaudible].

That's pretty cool. So as a captain, are you ever actually on a stand?

Chad Motz: Sometimes I wish I was, I mean, I do drive down the beach and I'll stop and sit with the guards But that doesn't happen necessarily as much as I would like it to. I deal with a lot of the administrative stuff and budgetary stuff and stuff behind the scenes. and then I try to get it on the beach as much as I can every day. And sometimes that's more, sometimes that's less. I do enjoy going up and down the beach and sitting and talking with the guards and getting to know them and developing those kind of interpersonal relationships as well.

Denise Schnabel (Host): That's great. All right. So let's start on beach safety. Now that we've gotten he's a lifeguard. We got it. All right. Vic topic currently holds on the beach. Talk To us about how bad that is.

Chad Motz: It's been in the news a lot and there's been lots of questions. It's something I think that's, always been around. for whatever reason, when people come to the beach, like digging holes on the beach, it's much more fun than digging holes in your backyard for some reason. I think it's just, the ease of being able to move sand and it can be dangerous, plain and simple. So our recommendations for us, and we have some regulations ordinance in our town to go along with it, but we asked that the whole be wider than it is deep. We ask that people don't dig any deeper than knee to thigh, deep of the smallest person in the group.

So, take Shaquille O'Neal was seven feet tall, a knee deep hole on him. It's going to be over ahead of a toddler, you know? So we ask you to think about the small person in your group. If you dig a hole, don't leave an unoccupied. Do you fill it back in before you leave the beach? and then sand, as you dig down, it gets wet and you can build those vertical walls. After time, days was hot like today that moisture draws out and it becomes unstable and you can have collapses.

And there's been instances all around the country, around the world of where unfortunate events have happened and people have gotten trapped in holes and, even worse outcomes in that I know there was one up in new Jersey about a month ago where two kids and one, did not make it and go home. So yeah, it is. So it's just one of those things that we've added to our list to talk to people about and try to keep people safe.

Denise Schnabel (Host): So you don't stop people. You just kind of educate or?

Chad Motz: Educate and if they've gone too deep, then we, yeah, we tell them to stop. And you know, when you can only be this deep and we ask them to make sure they fill it in, don't leave it unoccupied And still, unfortunately, occasionally you know, we get reports where someone's left the beach and didn't fill it in, or we come by the next morning and one of the first things our guards do when they get on the beach on the mobile units is drive the beach and look for hazards and they find a hole that wasn't filled in. They have to fill it in themselves. It's much better for them, so for that reason, the guards a little bit more proactive and telling people that they have to build it in, so they don't have to do the work themselves. Right?

Wendy Kelly (Host): Yeah. All the fun that there is on the beach that you really have to be mindful of a lot of things around you, which you tend not to do on vacation. But one thing in particular that I know we speak about every summer, our rips. ,

Chad Motz: RIp currents are one of the leading causes of water rescues around the country around. There's lots of more information and honestly ways to educate yourself about things nowadays with these little computers you have in your pocket and YouTube and all the other things. And so there's all kinds of videos out there about recurrence and how to protect yourself and how to spot them. So I guess what I want to say is know your limits, this isn't your backyard swimming pool. It's not the pool where you're from and Ohio or Pennsylvania or New York or wherever you come from.

the ocean is a wild natural environment and every day is different and sitting out there, a taller lifeguard says, cause some of our life guards didn't grew up at the beach and I come from other places. And so trying to educate them as well and educate them how to educate people on the beach. It can be challenging. It's one of those things, when you sit out there for a hundred days during the summer, and you see things change, like the water temperature this morning was 56 degrees and yesterday it was 70 degrees.

Why that happens, you know? And you see the surf change based on the wind conditions and different storefronts out there. So, we're occurrence is one of those things that we deal with a lot. anytime you have waves coming in and hitting a sandbar and he'd get that water piled up on the beach and then it retreats, It goes back out. And so the rips are those little channels between the shallow spots on the sandbars where people like to play. People sometimes they walk off the end of the sandbar or the lateral current takes them they end up, in a different spot than where they went out and sometimes get themselves in trouble.

So, one of the things we talk about and I'll talk about here is, know how to swim, Don't go swimming alone, go with a friend. It's a good idea to take flotation with you. Like rip currents. They pull you up past the sandbar, it's not an undertow. It doesn't pull you under the water, but if you don't know how to swim, then you're going to struggle to stay above the water. If you have flotation, hang on to the flotation and weigh for help, yell for help, signal for help.

if you see somebody in trouble, We don't recommend that you don't try to affect rescues yourself although that can be really hard if you're a parent, you have a kid out there, but, be smart about things, try to take flotation if you're going into water to help somebody. if you think you're capable of doing that we don't recommend it, but I understand. They're not going to pull you all the way across to England. We're going to pull you out beyond sandbars and that might be 50 yards.

It might be 75 yards. so if you're on flotation, hang on to that flotation yell, signal for help. And if you see somebody in trouble, call 911, get the attention of a lifeguard. And life guards and human, they don't see everything. We try to teach them to see everything, but, we're all human. Right. And so, there's a lot of things go on out there to pay attention to. So, Yell to them signal to them, run it to the lifeguard stand. You see, we got guards patrolling on ATVs and you might not be in the area where there's lifeguard stands.

So call 911. And when you're out on the beach, the other thing, when you're calling 911, you got to know where you're at and that's a big thing when you're on vacation. Yeah. So I'm sure this may be a topic of discussion about other things. Oftentimes there's one person in that house of 30 people that knows where they're at. And sometimes people, they might be staying in Kitty Hawk, but some reason they think they're in Nags Head or vice versa. So have an idea where you're at, know what town you're in landmarks, if you know the address. That's awesome. If you go to a beach access, make sure everybody knows what access you're at and that sort of thing.

Denise Schnabel (Host): so our rip currents, are those the most frequent rescues that you guys do?

Chad Motz: I'd say so. Yeah. they're like the bread and butter, so to speak. Like today, there's nothing going on at the beach. The ocean was about as flat as it can be. And the water was about as cold as it gets during the summer. So like there was nothing, people barely went in the water today. But you know, a couple of days ago it was in the seventies and we had a little bit of wave action.

Low tide was in the middle of the day. So there was all kinds of people venturing out on these little sandbars. And we had a lot of those little, we call it calm, hop, and pops. But like people just kind of fallen off the end of the sandbar and kids on boogie boards. It got to where they couldn't touch the bottom and then we're going out and assisting them and making some rescues and that sort of thing. So yeah.

Wendy Kelly (Host): What other kinds of things, do you see out there?

Chad Motz: Yeah. One of the other big issues we deal with is like strong offshore winds. I think here, like probably like a lot of other places winds are usually generally calmer in the mornings. And then for whatever reason as the land heats up, those winds pick up in the afternoon and we get those afternoon thunderstorms and that sort of thing. So usually right around one o'clock you start to see the white caps on the ocean and days like today, so we have people go out on, stand up paddle boards on inflatables and boogie boards, kayaks, and that sort of thing.

And then Mike. Before the winds pick up and it's calm and then go a half mile off shore. And the winds pick up to 20, 25 miles an hour. And all of a sudden it's not so easy to get back to the beach. and so it's pretty manageable during the summer. We've got eyes up and down the beach. it's much more dangerous when we don't have those eyes up and down the beach. I remember a call a couple of years ago there was a couple, a man or a woman,they rented these standup paddleboards and paddled out and they're out, beyond the pier.

And all of a sudden the winds picked up I think we were in training camp. So most of us were at the fire station and we got this call. Well, what had happened is they were out there and they struggled and struggled trying to get back in. And the boyfriend finally told the girlfriend, like, I think I can make it, but, and so he paddled out for the beach and made it back to the beach about a mile down the beach south and called 911. And the girl floated.

So we ended up doing a search and they found her. So this was up, Bonnet Street area about mile post 11. And they found her two miles off shore off of Janette's Pier six miles south with a helicopter. S0 yeah, I mean, coordinated search and found her and rescued her and that sort of thing. So happy ending to that one. Yeah. But it was scary.

Wendy Kelly (Host): What save are you most proud of? In all your many years.

Chad Motz: Yeah. I've got a couple, it's funny that they're both off-duty incidents. So, I got recognized for a rescue a couple of years ago. I was on the beach, hanging out with my two, small boys they're twins. And, it just happened on the beach in front of me we had little orange shore winds, some surf that built up throughout the day. And just notice the gentleman that was struggling. And, I grabbed my paddleboard that I use for competitions and stuff. And I had out there that day for training and stuff, I grabbed that and, ran into the water.

And I kind of grabbed him and pulled him up above the surface and got him on my board. Struggled a little bit. He was a larger gentlemen and he was just whooped, like he was done. Like he dumped his adrenaline and he had basically given up, so got him up on the board, got him back to the beach, had some other people come in and asist me in getting him out of the water and that sort of thing. But yeah, it was recognized for that and yeah, it was cool. Cause my kids were there and got to see their dad.

Denise Schnabel (Host): My Dad, the hero. Yeah. that's amazing.

Wendy Kelly (Host): The one little public service announcement I want to talk about is, folks that come that are with children and think that the guards are, hope that the guards will kind of do a little babysitting yeah. Just kind of want to underscore that the importance that you remain vigilant, keeping your eyes on whomever you're in charge of.

Chad Motz: Yeah. And I mean, our guards are trained professionals, they're there when we need it and called upon, but they're not babysitters. Especially with small children, the ocean environment, it's really important that parents be lifeguards themselves.

Denise Schnabel (Host): When a child goes down, they go down fast.

Chad Motz: Yeah. It's tricky with kids too. They don't necessarily understand and respect the ocean, or don't still have the experience to understand it. So just educating your children, teaching them the limits and making sure, you know, understand their swimming ability and they understand it. That being said too, like lot of our rescues, those little rip current rescues, oftentimes, and I touched on this before that a lot of times kids will get themselves in trouble and they'll be on a boogie board drift out into the rip and get caught in it.

And the parents are the ones that end up going in and trying to affect the rescue, you know, and there ended up being the real victim of it. The kid gets pushed in on a way, cause they're on a boogie board and the parent runs in without any kind of life tool, like a flotation device. And then we get there and we're rescuing the parent and, we're bringing them on the beach and a lot of times you never call an EMS. And I get that natural instinct thing, a parent of wanting to protect your children. Be preventative and be preemptive and, really, I guess, respect the ocean and make sure that they understand the limits and stay close to them in the water.

Wendy Kelly (Host): That's what I was going to ask, since you're a father of two, but you're also a lifeguard captain are you more conscious or more safety conscious with your kids or are you more, you just educated them and they'll be all right? Do they get mad at you because you're overbearing when they're on the beach?

Chad Motz: they're honestly like pretty timid of the ocean. I've had people ask me, approach me, like, how did you teach your kids to swim? And that sort of thing. Like I spent a lot of time with him in the pool from an early age, I would take them to the pool two or three times a week and made to a point where they're comfortable and could kind of self rescue, keep themselves afloat and tread water from an early age. But that being said, they've had their dose of the ocean and grown up around the ocean. And so I think they have a pretty healthy respect for it.

And they were pretty scared of it from an early age, just the waves and that sort of thing. And they've been in little rips and I've had to, jump in the water with them and like, okay, you're in a rip. it's pulling you out. You can't touch the bottom now, but you can tread water, this is what we're going to do to get out of it. so they have that healthy respect for it. And I've taken them out on surf boards and paddle boards on little days and we've caught waves and that sort of thing, but they don't like being far away from the beach or at least, they haven't, but probably in the last couple of years, they're turning eight next month.

They Have gotten to the point where, there's learning to body surf and boogie board and that sort of things that are becoming a little bit more adventurous towards it, but, it's all striking that balance and giving them a little bit of freedom to test the waters, but, being that safety person and I guess myself just being a professional, I trust my own skills in order to help my children and that sort of thing. But I know that not every parent possesses that as well.

Denise Schnabel (Host): So do you guys do some type of education in the schools or anything or community outreach?

Chad Motz: We do some various things with community outreach. we got some groups of kids come over from Nags elementary at the beginning of the summer, every year. We work with, some of the education stuff down at Janette's Pier. So Kristen Brown runs the education department down there and runs like they call a Waterman's camp and they learn how to fish and surf. And so we come in with each of those sessions and do like a little lifeguard education and talk about, what we do and the risks, we talked about rip currents and, what we do to affect rescues. And that's great.

Wendy Kelly (Host): Denise, you wanted to ask about animals. I'm going to let you know do that.

Denise Schnabel (Host): I just wanted to ask because I get so angry when I see people on the beach when it's a hundred degrees with their dog. So let's do another public service promotion of making sure your pets are safe on the beach.

Chad Motz: Today, the prime example, I mean, is heat index of a hundred. Yeah. And that sand gets super hot, I think. and not everybody realizes it, but it does you realize it when it's too late? pets for sure, dogs, especially if they're dark haired and that sort of thing, but probably best to take your dogs out early in the morning or later in the evening. Same thing with children and people out there, make sure you have shade. they get plenty of water. I know dogs have a tendency, some of them to try and drink ocean water, which doesn't work out too well.

If you do bring your dog to the beach, they are allowed in Nags Head, I don't know the specific rules for each town. but check with your town. I know some of them have, he can only bring them out in the mornings, in the evenings. pretty much any public place though in Outer Banks, your dog is supposed to be on a leash unless it's at like a dog park or something like that. So, you are responsible for your animal responsible cleanup for your animal.

Denise Schnabel (Host): Thank you, Chad. Yeah, we have to bring up the animals.

Wendy Kelly (Host): And then how about the wildlife? Yeah, what advicwe do you have for our wildlife?

Chad Motz: Yeah, so there's a national environment and there's lots of animals out there. We can take our kids. So lots of kids are guards over to the aquarium, usually during training every year. We didn't get to go in 2020 and 2021, just because of the COVID and stuff like that. But we went back this year for the first time in a few years. So it was a lot of fun and they do a whole educational session on some of the different wildlife out there, but common things that we run into,the one that everybody loves the sea turtles.

This is a big nesting place for sea turtles. And I think there's five different types of sea turtles that nest out here and the Carolinas and all of them are either endangered or protected from. and they marked the different, nesting sites on the beach. You'll see them kind of staked off and tape around it with a little sign, just educating you on what it is. There's volunteer group in Nags to patrols the beach every morning, looks for turtle tracks to see if they've laid nests.

So that's a cool one. Loons is another one we deal with alot. A bit of a headache sometimes. so LHINs are a waterbird that are common out here. They fish and eat, little fish and stuff like that on the water. And they get full and same thing with humans. When you eat a lot of food, we recommend you don't go swimming. Cause all that blood goes to your stomach, well same thing for these birds, like they get full and they want to rest and so they come up on land and there's. Are pointed backwards for swimming purposes so they can't walk. And so people always think they're injured. And so they just want to come up on the beach and chill.

And the hard thing about that in the summertime is that there's all these people. And so people like crowd around them. I think they're injured and try to help them. And really all they want to do is be left alone and that might take 24 hours for that to happen. And then occasionally, sometimes they are sick or injured and nature takes its course, and that sort of thing, but it's just one of those things. They're wildlife and they want to be left alone. And I think we need to respect that.

Other stuff we see out there and we deal with, especially on clear days, fish in the water, wildlife and the water. I mean, it's there, it's the ocean, it's natural environment. You can't get away from it. But if you see, things in the water, swimming around, probably not, I get to go try and swim with them, you know? So that's what I want to say about that.

Denise Schnabel (Host): Have yopu ever been Bit or what is it, stung by jellyfish?

Chad Motz: Yes.

Wendy Kelly (Host): You haven't?

Denise Schnabel (Host): I have never been stung by a jelly fish.

Chad Motz: But like, it doesn't bother me. I think jellyfish is one of those things. different people react differently. It's like mosquito bites. I don't react to mosquito bites anymore. I did when I was a kid. And some people react really strongly to jellyfish and some people not really at all.

Denise Schnabel (Host): Well, it probably depends on the kind of jelly fish too.

Chad Motz: It does. Yeah. Yeah. some of the common jellies we have around here. Not too bad. We do occasionally get manawars, which can be much more severe, but, they get pushed in from tropical water. Usually when we have tropical systems and stuff like that, they get pushed in from some of the warmer waters.

Wendy Kelly (Host): Cool. So any other tips you want to talk about?

Chad Motz: one of the things we deal with is environmental emergencies. So heat, exhaustion, heat stroke. So, we talked about the sand being super hot. So we have seen people with burnt feet or dogs with burned feet. Today is one of those days where we have environmental emergencies and people just overdoing it, whether it's going for a run in the middle of the day, when it's too hot or just going out in the beach and drinking too many cocktails and sitting in the sun and not getting any shade.

so just be mindful of that. And we talked about making sure you know, where your location is. We get children and elderly people that, get lost, from time to time, it's easy to go out for a walk in the morning and walk over the dune and everything looks the same and have no idea, where you are. And some of those, especially older people will spend hours. Walking back and forth because they're too proud to admit their loss. Kids on the other hand there, they'll let you know their loss right away. Or like, you can recognize they're running down the beach crying and there's nobodies around. So, that's a little easier one to deal with typically.

Denise Schnabel (Host): So I have to ask a question have you ever hit anybody with your beach buggy?

Chad Motz: No, I haven't, but I got a funny story of somebody who did. when I was a lifeguard who was a supervisor. And what happened with like, we used to get contracts to guard Southern shores. This is where that town it happened in. And the beach is kind of narrow, but we would go out with the truck in the morning and a set of tracks along the dune line. And try to keep that open for vehicle traffic. Well, these kids came out and one kid buried his friend in the tire tracks. Like completely buried and put a towel over his face and covered his face with sand, and then ran back to the house to get a camera to take a picture.

And the truck came along and ran over to this kid. And this supervisor describing it. He said, man, it felt like I hit a speed bump. I looked in my rear view mirror and this kid popped up and ran away like scared the bajebers out of him. And the kid was fine. Like if nobody was hurt.

Wendy Kelly (Host): All right. Let's add that to the list of things we don't want people to do.

Chad Motz: Yeah. So on that note, most of the lifeguard agencies and staff, we try to have an emergency vehicle lane. It is at the tow to do line so that we can drive unobstructed and have a safe place to drive. We can also scan the water and the people on the beach. And so we ask people, give us room, and place to operate. And, yeah, that's the funny little story to go along with that.

Denise Schnabel (Host): That's. Excellent. All right. So this podcast was brought to you as a public service by the Outer Banks Hospital and Medical Group. If you've enjoyed this podcast, share it on your social channels. To hear more Outer Banks Health, check out the library at theobh.com/podcast. This is your host, Denise Schnabel, stay safe.