Dateline: Saturday, July 29, 2017. My goal today was to walk from SMS 24 to No. Channel at MDR and back. I got sidetracked at Venice Pier when a surfer got hit by a stingray at N. Pier and it turned out to be a friend of mine...
In any case, I took a bunch of photos along the way and before the stingray incident...
0800 hrs, Santa Monica South, from the parking lot behind SMS 24...
Somebody scored an 8 - 4 shift at Tower #22 as part of his summer schedule on SMS!...
OL Justin Kirby has some skills when it comes to pitching traffic cones from the deck of the tower during his morning tower set up procedures!... :-)
Venice North local, below, checking out the surf.....
Taggers hit Rose Ave. hard with graffiti...
Breakwater too!...
As I walked past Ave 18, a stingray first aid was underway... (that sure looks like veteran OL #Shota at center frame with hot water in hand... just sayin'...)
At Ave 23, veteran OL Ryan, on duty, watching the water...
A couple of locals reading the paper at Ave 26... at left is a veteran OL who recently graduated from UCLA and just completed another summer as a Venice JG Instructor along with his dad and older brother..... and whose uncle is Jimmy Makuta.....
Ave 26 needs some new paint too!...
When I had just reached the Venice Pier, I heard a bit of a commotion and observed a surfer at the water's edge holding his ankle and it turned out to be a stingray hit. As I got closer I realized it was a friend of mine... so I stuck around and drove him to the Urgent Care facility in MDR in his car later and on the way back hitched a ride with Capt. Tito Bourget who just happened to be driving back from MDR to Venice!... True story!...
My friend asked me to take his photo so I did but I am cropping it here in this blog post. The stingray got him on the inside of his foot near his ankle bone at a really soft spot and my friend's pain level was at 8 according to him. With the assistance of OL Chris Smith and Capt. Chris Staffield, hot water was applied with the now customary yellow stingray bag.
Turns out my friend spent 4 - 5 hours at Urgent Care and the ER, had x-rays, and is now home recuperating. Not his plan for the day, to say the least...
And get this, by 10 a.m., Capt. Staffield said that they already had had 3 Stingray first aids in Venice!!!...
While walking back from the Urgent Care Center in MDR I passed the bird sanctuary, and noticed there was a big freaking bird basically on duty as a lifeguard or policeman!... Gnarly looking dude, that's for sure!
Later in the day around noon, I made it back to Venice.....
I took this photo above and below of Ave 18 later in the just past 12 noon and when I got home I realized that there is something going on in the background on top of a lifeguard unit...
Full Disclosure: I did NOT stop for pizza and I did NOT stop at Zelda's Corner Deli either...
Back to SMS... finally!.....
10-4
Until next time.....
"County Recurrent" News
http://CountyRecurrent.blogspot.com
(All photos by & Copyright Will Maguire 2017.)
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