Beachgoers form human chain to rescue drowning swimmers

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have this talk with your kids before vacation to the beach, swim parallel to the beach if you are caught in a rip current.

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Just a friendly reminder to everyone, and you should have this talk with your kids before vacation to the beach, swim parallel to the beach if you are caught in a rip current.

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Conventional wisdom says that Jamie MacMahan was doing everything right when, about a decade ago, he found himself caught in a rip current while swimming off the coast of Monterey, California. Rips flow seaward, out to deep water, so beach access signs across the country advise swimmers to paddle parallel to the beach to escape the them. The savage, dread-inducing flows kill more beachgoers each year than any other threat and MacMahan, a professor of oceanography and a strong swimmer, was following the “swim parallel” gospel, paddling steadily. But as he thrashed in the cold Pacific, the rip refused to relent. “I thought, ‘That’s interesting,’” MacMahan says.

MacMahan, it’s important to note, had done this to himself. A rip current expert at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, he had volunteered to subject himself to the rip for a safety video the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization was filming. With plenty of experience, he wasn’t in serious danger. “But as I was swimming parallel to the shore, left and right, I noticed that it was easier to swim one direction more than the other,” MacMahan says. The safety guidelines he was promoting—the life-saving advice we tell the millions of Americans who flock to the beach each summer—he thought, could be wrong.

In the last five years, MacMahan’s research has upended the field of rip current studies. Since that initial experience in Monterey, he’s used GPS devices to meticulously track nearshore currents in the U.S., England, and France, and has jumped into rips around the world. Rips can form on any beach, MacMahan says, and swimmers usually don’t know a rip’s present until they’re in its clutches. Panicked victims often try to swim directly back to shore—against the powerful offshore flow. Swimmers familiar with rips might try swimming parallel to escape. But MacMahan’s research suggests doing the unthinkable: giving in and going with the flow.

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Ursrey said the flags were yellow at the time of the ordeal. She said her mother, who also tried to help in the rescue suffered a heart attack and is still recovering in the hospital.

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