Check this photo out below, brought to us by S.O.L., Kevin Curtis, who had this to say about this particular photo: "It's Tower 58 El Segundo. The lifeguard is Pat Volosin. It was a random, lucky shot. It was taken at Grand Ave. in late August of 2003. I was waiting for Jon Van Duinwyk to get off work and noticed the 58 guard standing on his deck. It was one of those late summer tropical sunsets."
(Photo by and courtesy of Kevin Curtis. Copyright Kevin Curtis 2003. All Rights Reserved. Used here with permission. Reproduction without consent is prohibited).
Many Thanks, Kevin, for sharing that absolutely stunning photo of the beach and this lifeguard tower. And now some extra credit background on the photographer/lifeguard, Kevin Curtis, for the curious County Recurrent:
(Photo of Kevin Curtis above. Photo courtesy of Kevin Curtis. Photo by Phil Navarro. Copyright Phil Navarro 2008. All Rights Reserved. Used here with permission.)
Kevin grew up in Malibu on the north end of Zuma. He got on with the State lifeguards at Leo Carillo in 1990 and with L.A. County in 1996, the same year he graduated from U.C.S.B. (Go Gauchos !), with a degree in History. Remarkably, Kevin also had a marine kinesiology course at Campus Point that met only during southern, west and northern swells, all four years ! He worked as a recurrent at Zuma and was voted Northern Section Lifeguard of the Year in 1997. He was promoted B-item in 2001 and worked mostly in Hermosa and Redondo as a B-Item. He went back up to Zuma in 2004 and in 2005 transfered to Central Section and worked at the Venice Breakwater for three years. He now works in the Call Car at Santa Monica. (editor's note/cross-reference: Central Section Shout Out ! Woo Hoo !)
His rookie school instructors were Steve Page, Steve Moseley, Terry Yamamoto, Chris Linkletter, Chris Hammond, Greg Lee, and Lee Davis. He was voted Most Outstanding Candidate. His buddies in rookie school were Dylan Jones, Richard Lee, and Chris Frohoff.
His most memorable rescue was in 1997. Kevin and Simon Snyder were doubled in Tower 4, Zuma. As Kevin tells it, "The surf was 10-12' with 15' sets. A huge southern hemi swell. Two Chinese kids got sucked out on their boogie boards. Simon and I swam out to the two. They were panicking and yelling at us in Chinese. We wanted to take them onto Baywatch, but neither they, nor the beach units could see us because of the huge surf. We ended up swimming them in. As I said, we started out at Tower 4. We ended up back on the beach north of Tower 11. A distance of over a mile."
Many thanks to Kevin for sharing his LACo lifeguard background and experience with us, not to mention his exceptional sunset photo above.
And so, we now leave you with the closing photo below of the Central Section (woo hoo!) Call Car, Code 3, westbound or north on Santa Monica North a couple of years ago on Labor Day.
(Photo by Will Maguire. Copyright Will Maguire 2007. All Rights Reserved).
Until next time.....
"County Recurrent" News
http://CountyRecurrent.blogspot.com
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DISCLAIMER: County Recurrent is not affiliated with nor sponsored by LACOLA or LACoFD.
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