{"id":423435,"date":"2026-08-04T08:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T08:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/423435\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T08:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T08:52:07","slug":"viral-santa-cruz-water-rescue-video-sparks-renewed-push-to-make-lifeguards-first-responders-nbc-7-san-diego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/423435\/","title":{"rendered":"Viral Santa Cruz water rescue video sparks renewed push to make lifeguards first responders \u2013 NBC 7 San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether it\u2019s in the water fighting furious waves, like the recent ocean rescue in Santa Cruz<\/a>, or high flying heroics on Sunset Cliffs to save someone who has fallen off<\/a>, lifeguards here in San Diego and across the state put their lives on the line, saving lives \u2014 and in spite of those dangers, they\u2019re not designated by the state as first responders.<\/p>\n

This now viral rescue video from Santa Cruz is renewing the push to make it happen.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear from Encinitas, whose daughter is a lifeguard, is co-authoring Senate Concurrent Resolution 192. It would recognize open water lifeguards as first responders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really about rights and protections and benefits, recognizing that they are first on scene, whether that’s on the sand or in the water, they are dealing with those life-threatening emergencies,” said Blakespear.<\/p>\n

From June through the first weekend of August, there have been more than 4,100 water rescues along San Diego’s coastline and bays, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.<\/p>\n

Despite those lifesaving efforts, and the fact that in the city of San Diego, lifeguards are\u00a0part of the fire department \u2014 operating as first responders \u2014 they’re still not designated as first responders.<\/p>\n

Connor Robbins is the Chief Steward of San Diego’s Lifeguard Union. He says the current designation means missing out on certain injury\u00a0salary benefits\u00a0and line of duty protections, when they’ve got to save lives in the ocean and in the toxic tides of the Tijuana River.<\/p>\n

“All of these job duties expose us to various things that have been correlated to long-term cancers, to physical injuries, but things like PTSD,” said Robbins.<\/p>\n

Lifeguards put their health and lives on the line to keep San Diego\u2019s beaches safe, said Chris Brester, former San Diego Lifeguard Captain and Chair of the National Certification Committee of the United States Life Saving Association.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very rare that there is a drowning, a fatal drowning at guarded beaches in San Diego,\u201d said Brewster. \u201cThose lifeguards are number one: going out and preventing things from happening, and number two: making the rescues.”<\/p>\n

Hawaii and New Jersey just recently recognized lifeguards as first responders.<\/p>\n

In addition to the California state resolution, there’s a push for a congressional resolution to recognize them as first responders, as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether it\u2019s in the water fighting furious waves, like the recent ocean rescue in Santa Cruz, or high…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,11113,76,75,1498],"class_list":["post-423435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-fire-rescue-department","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-santa-cruz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}