Rip Current & Beach Safety
"Information is Knowledge — Knowledge is Safety"
Surfside, Texas
Four steps that flow — repeatable, life-saving, and simple to remember.
Recognize the situation to understand you can get out of this. This step lets you know what is happening and triggers what you need to do next — stay calm.
Recognize the situation, then stay calm. Understand what is happening so panic does not take control.
Stay calm, don't panic. This step allows you to realize you know what's going on so you can then focus on a very important factor — breathing.
Panic causes exhaustion, confusion, and dangerous muscular response.
EMT Collaboration:
You are breathing. This step lets you know you are now above water and becoming calmer than before, just from gathering control of the situation. Now locate the beach to start moving along the beach, out of the current, heading out of the immediate danger.
Now recognizing your situation — calmer, breathing — you can focus on signaling while moving the coastline out of the current. Signal for help while moving out of danger.
You are breathing and in control of your movements. Now just follow the steps repeatably: Recognize the situation as it goes, stay Calm throughout the time, Breath to stay afloat, and Signal for help.
Repeat as needed — the method loops back to Recognize
This is about saving lives, helping out emergency response, and having all beach goers feeling safe and excited to come back.