As parts of South Florida experience high-risk rip tides, in the last seven days, there have been hundreds of water rescues in Miami-Dade County, fire rescue officials said.
According to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, there have been 509 water rescues from March 29 to April 4, with 330 of those calls involving rip currents.
The following break-down of rescues made during the seven-day period includes the following:
March 29: 32 water rescue incidents, 20 involving rip currents
March 30: 2 water rescue incidents, both calls involving rip currents
March 31: 6 water rescue incidents
April 1: 10 water rescue incidents
April 3: 85 water rescue incidents, 60 involving rip currents
April 4: 130 water rescue incidents, 70 involving rip currents
April 5: 244 water rescue incidents, 178 involving rip currents
Fort Lauderdale, 54 people were rescued on Friday in 36 incidents with two being taken to the hospital.
Over the weekend there were 54 rescues.
Last week, a father of three died while saving two of his children from a rip current while vacationing in Juno Beach, family and friends said.
“It won’t pull you under, it’ll pull you out away from shore,” said Mitch McCrady. “What causes the situation is the panic. When you see that you’re not going where you wanna go, your heart goes a little faster and then ensues the panic. The panic is what kills you. It’s not an under tow. It’s not gonna pull you down.”
Lifeguards are watching closely for signs of swimmers who are in trouble.
“I’m looking through the binoculars at people’s faces to see if they’re stressed out or if his hair in their face, that’s another sign, or if they’re climbing the ladder, so you know, if I need to make a rescue or prevent,” said Anthony Giuseppetti, a Lifeguard in Fort Lauderdale Beach.
Lifeguards said the safest thing you can do is to check the conditions before getting in the water and always swim near a lifeguard.