COASTAL OBSERVER

A new rip current simulator at Tidelands Health Pawleys Family YMCA is powerful, not just in terms of its speed, but in the way it may save lives. 

The YMCA will partner with the Georgetown County School District to teach sixth-graders about rip current water safety called the Rip Current Ready Initiative. The lessons may begin within the next six weeks.

Travis Klatka, principal of Waccamaw Intermediate, said fundraisers are underway to cover the $70 cost per child. He said the school is looking at the end of October for the students to test out the simulator.

“It’s good for the kids and the community,” Klatka said.

The YMCA plans to work with other sixth-graders along the Waccamaw Neck after the intermediate school students go through the initiative including Lowcountry Preparatory School and Coastal Montessori Charter School. Their overarching goal is to have each student learn through the Rip Current Ready Initiative before they enter high school.

Ingram Walters, a YMCA member, learned about the initiative and wanted to help, so he covered the cost for the first 100 sixth graders to go through the initiative. Another local YMCA member has already expressed interest in covering the cost for the rest of the intermediate school students.

More than $30,000 has been donated toward the initiative.

Board Member Jarrod Ownbey took a moment to remember Tyrese Haynes, a rising senior who drowned in the ocean off of Litchfield by the Sea last summer. He said this new form of water safety training can save many lives.

“I’m sure we all remember over a year ago, we lost a student in the Waccamaw cluster. I would like to prevent that from happening again,” Ownbey said at last week’s board meeting.

Hatton Gravely, chief development officer for the Coastal Carolina YMCA, said an initiative focused on water safety for students in sixth grade and older is “critical.”

“As a parent, I want my older kids to go through these classes. The last time they took swim lessons, they were learning how to swim and they were little,” she said.

The national Safety Around Water program teaches second graders how to swim at the YMCA. The Frances P. Bunnelle Foundation along with the county’s Parks and Recreation Department and school district have continued to fund the program for over 10 years to provide free lessons for the students at the Georgetown and Pawleys YMCAs. 

Lessons for the second graders, typically during the school year, will now use the simulator as a part of the Safety Around Water program at no additional cost.

Officials from the town of Pawleys Island were among those who saw the first demonstration of the simulator last week. The town has started program to raise awareness of rip currents after a series of drowning on the island’s north end.

This summer, an Atlanta man, 20, drowned in the same area in June. Another man, 38, drowned trying to help a group of people caught in a rip current less than three weeks later. There have been five total drownings on the section of beach near Midway Inlet in two years.

“You’d think, ‘well, what’s that going to do?’ Well, it’s going to do a lot,” Mark Hawn, a member of the town Planning Commission, said. “It was amazing. It was so powerful.”

Hawn lives on the north end as is a kiteboarder who is familiar with the currents.

The hefty device made of metal can be placed and moved between lanes in the pool that usually takes the manpower of two to manuever. A monitor on the wall lights up in red to show its speed.

Luther H. Hodges Jr. donated over $20,000 for the YMCA to get the simulator after hearing about the need for it through his daughter, Anne Predieri, who serves on the advisory board for the Pawleys YMCA.

Hawn said it was shocking just to see someone try to swim against “such a thing.”

“You don’t even need to physically get in the pool,” Hawn said. “The way it moved this woman, this demonstrator, through the water was wild.”

Gravely agreed that the simulator is important to show people what to expect if they were to experience one in a safe environment rather than the ocean. Although Gravely hasn’t physically tried the simulator herself, simply watching the demonstration gave her an understanding of how fast a rip current works.

“This is just one more way that we’re able to educate the public and our members and kids in the area on how to be safe around water,” Gravely said. “The more awareness we build, the more lives we’re going to save.”