Suffering From Some Level of Hypothermia

Jon Brick

I have hundreds of fond memories from 10 years of lifeguarding, 1975 through 1984. Here is one the whole family can enjoy.

The winter of 1974-1975 was when I went through training. There was a day during training that the water was 47 degrees. To add to it there was a bitter cold Santa Ana wind howling through the canyon. The type of wind that left the water surface near the shore fairly smooth, but farther out you could see huge white caps breaking.

Of course wetsuits were not an option, but I think it was Jack Lincke that talked Bruce into letting us use fins on a swim, the thought being we would spend less time in the water. When I hit the water it was an unbelievable shock. I literally could not take a breath for what seemed like an eternity it was so cold.

When the swim was over everyone was suffering from some level of hypothermia. I was shaking so much it felt more like convulsions.

We then marched up to city hall to take a written test. We could barely wrap our fingers around the pencils to write the answers, and the writing looked like scribbling. While I was working on my test, Bruce Baird and Jim Stauffer were standing next to me talking quietly while looking at some sort of chart. They seemed very concerned. I asked Bruce what it was they were looking at. He said it was a Navy exposure chart, and they were trying to figure out the length of the next swim that afternoon. He showed me the chart which had temperature down one side of it, and time in minutes along the bottom. A bright red line went diagonally across the page. I asked Bruce what the red line was. He said that was where the combination of temperature and time would cause death. Fortunately none of us hit the red line that day. I don't think the water has ever been that cold since here in Laguna.

Jon Brick