In this coastal county in Southern Oregon, water safety issues are growing

Curry County is home to several different rivers that invite recreation, including the Rogue, Chetco and Elk. But all of that open water can lead to accidents like drownings. Luke Martinez is the aquatic safety officer and lifeguard for the coastal county. He says he’s seen tourism in the region grow and has witnessed more incidents around water safety. He joins us with details of what the county has been experiencing and how a junior lifeguard program can help educate residents.

Note: The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. There are many water dangers in Curry County. Some of them, like sneaker waves or high surf, are tied to the coast. Others can be found in the county’s wild and scenic rivers. But with more people enjoying these waters, there are more chances for accidental drownings. Luke Martinez is working to prevent that. He is the aquatic safety officer and a lifeguard for Curry County. He joins us to talk about his work, including the junior lifeguard program. Luke, welcome to the show.

Luke Martinez: Hi, Dave. Thanks for having me.

Miller: What does it mean to be an aquatic safety officer for the county?

Martinez: Thanks. Yeah. So the program itself, the Aquatic Safety Program, which is under Curry County, we started that about four years ago. And the program wanted to focus on outreach education in response to our 362 square miles of rivers, lakes and streams. Then we have 100 miles of coastline as well. Fun fact about that is that the amount of water we have within it is the most water within a county in the entire state of Oregon.

Miller: And you’re not geographically close to being the biggest actual county in Oregon. But I guess Harney County has a lot less water, for example.

Martinez: Correct. Yeah, we are not geographically the largest county, but we just have a lot of wild and scenic waterways. And of course, our shorelines, 100 miles of coastline that we cover. Our population, too, is around 22,000 people for the county. But in the last decade or so, we’ve definitely seen an increase of tourism, people visiting our beaches and waterways, understandably. And with that, we kind of were starting to see an increase in some of the incidents that were occurring in the region.

Miller: Can you give us a sense for the kind of incidents that are on the rise that you’re experiencing?

Martinez: The program, initially, when I started looking to start a program like this around 2018, we started to see some incidents. I think in 2018, we had three drownings along our shoreline. I think they were related to sneaker waves and high surf is what the National Weather Service put them under. So I started to focus on trying to prevent things like that happening. We work closely with the National Weather Service. During that same time, they started to put out beach hazard statement warnings. So we’ve worked with them the last four years to kind of refine those, and when they go out based on their criteria, and make sure people are educated that those events are happening. Those we’re on call for – so again, the sneaker waves, high surf warnings, or any warning related to any aquatic event.

So those we saw and then just the increase of tourism, people recreating understandably along our waterways and some of the technology involved with that, wetsuits. There’s more aquatic-related activities such as surfing and recreational boating that I think are two of the fastest growing sports in the U.S. I saw a survey done on that. And so we’re seeing that here as well. A lot of folks that come and visit our region are just starting to recreate for the first time in our waterways [and] sometimes don’t have the information or don’t really know what’s going on. So our program is really focused on the outreach portion, education portion to help people out in the field on our waterways when they’re trying those activities, to keep them safe and educated.

Miller: I’m curious about the things like the weather-related warnings. So if you get news, an update from the National Weather Service that there’s a higher likelihood, say of sneaker waves, how do you actually spread the word to people who are going out and how do they respond?

Martinez: Yeah, that’s a great question. Again, the National Weather Service, we deal with the Medford office, they cover our region geographically. They’ll put out – now, you probably get it on your phone – a warning about, there’s a sneaker wave, or a high surf warning, or you may get a high wind warning, any type of weather-related event. They’ve got them now working so that you will get a message on your phone. Or if you’re subscribing to an emergency management broadcast system, you’ll get that warning.

Well, our data has come back [and] a lot of times people may get the warning, but they don’t understand it. They may be visiting from Utah or Colorado, somewhere inland that they don’t have those types of warnings. So, yeah, we’re on call. I’ll patrol our coastline and depending on the severity of the event and where people are probably at those days – we have some popular areas – I’ll go over those areas and just be on the beach telling people about them.

I’ve got some popular beaches out front here at Gold Beach. We have a lot of hotels along the stretch and it can be a pretty dangerous beach during these events – steep beach. And so I’ve got some signs that the National Weather Service made for us and we put them right in the trailheads, basically. Walking on the beach, we’ve got a red flag on top of them just to give people a heads up that there is a warning going on. A lot of times, when we’re educating people, things happen in front of us. So we’ve got to be able, ready, to respond to those situations. It’s tough to be everywhere at the same time, but we try to really focus on the areas that are seeing the most people during these events.

Miller: Meaning, there have been times when you went to a beach to educate people to say, “hey, it’s a dangerous time,” and while you were doing that, people got in trouble?

Martinez: Yeah, that’s been unfortunately a common occurrence during our winter periods, especially during our high surf warnings. A lot of our beaches are steep, not a lot of room on them. So when we have … coinciding with our higher tides, or king tides and high surf events, people get knocked down, wave action will hit them. And we gotta go out there and try to get them out of that situation.

In terms of the metrics of the people we’re reaching right now, I think, we’ve been averaging around 7,500 contacts a year. And the other metric we count is our preventative measures. So if we have to go tell somebody or get somebody out of a dangerous situation, we count that as a preventative measure, preventative action. We’ve been averaging over 200 of those a year for the last four years. In terms of rescues like that, if somebody gets knocked down, we’ve got to go grab them, that’s considered a rescue. And we’ve been averaging around 12 rescues, assists a year as well.

Miller: We’ve been talking mostly so far about the coast or the ocean, but you’ve had three recorded drownings on the Rogue [River] last month alone. What can you tell us about what’s been happening there?

Martinez: Yeah, correct. Been very unfortunate accidents and yeah, we had three basically within a month period. They were back to back to back, about a week apart – all three of them. One was boating related, a boating accident, and the other two were swimming accidents. All three accidents, none of the victims were wearing life jackets. So what we’ve seen, not just here in Curry County, but throughout the state … and one of our collaborative partners and one of our funders through our boating safety advocacy program is the Oregon State Marine Board. We’ve just seen a larger increase in non-motorized boaters, people that are recreating on our waterways with stand up paddle boards, kayaks, rafts, any non-motorized craft. And we’ve seen a real big spike in that since 2020, basically of people going out and doing that.

That 30-mile stretch that those drownings occurred on on the Rogue River is maybe not as dangerous as the upper wild scenic section, but the Rogue River is a fast moving river year-round and can be extremely dangerous in all parts of it. So we just really encourage those people that are recreating in those regions and are boating to wear their life jackets, of course. And the state law states that if you’re 12 years or younger, then you must be wearing a properly fitting U.S. Coast Guard approved life jacket. If you’re over the age of 12 – 13 up – you must have a properly fitting Coast Guard approved life jacket on your vessel.

But the mentality with life jackets – and we’re trying to help improve this – is they’re just like seatbelts, that they don’t work unless you’re wearing them. So we really just encourage life jacket wear when people are boating or if they’re swimming in areas that they’re not familiar with, or comfortable with, or just don’t know that that river really well, to really just to play it safe and wear your life jacket. And this is not something we’ve seen just here in Curry County, but the entire state, the entire West Coast, if not the whole entirety of the United States.

Miller: It’s possible that some of our listeners now are thinking about the sort of statewide news of the tragic accident with Naomi Pomeroy not that long ago. A lot of folks, especially on a largely placid river like the Willamette … I think people think this is calm water. I know this river. I don’t need to wear a life jacket. What’s your message to us about that sensibility?

Martinez: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think [as] a whole, we are really lucky, especially here in Curry County. But the entire state of Oregon, we have so many different waterways and so many different avenues of recreation within our waterways. And I think that what we see here at a state level is that, yeah, water, it may look placid like on the Willamette. But underneath, it’s not. Those are large rivers that are moving at a higher rate. So people need to understand that and try to recreate it as safely as possible, wearing life jackets.

Again, when I’m out making boater contacts here, just on our local waterways, unfortunately, the wear rate is pretty bad. It’s pretty horrid. I would say that over 80% of the contacts I make, people are not wearing life jackets. And unfortunately a lot of my contacts with folks that have children on board, sometimes it’s not very good either. People just forget. They’re like, oh, I thought they had to be above 12, or 12, but as soon as they get above that age, for whatever reason, people just figure they don’t need to wear them anymore.

But again, we can enjoy our waterways much more if we’re safe on them. And we have so many opportunities to do that. Accidents happen within a second. And just like being in the car and getting in a car accident, if you’re not wearing a life jacket, then accidents will take the wrong turn.

Miller: Can you tell us about the Junior Lifeguard Program?

Martinez: Yeah. So part of our sustainability, or I guess our workforce, and then our education to teach our local youth and youth throughout the state, anyone from the age of 9 to 17 is eligible to enter our program. The program is pretty much modeled after California State Parks, their lifeguard division. They have a pretty robust junior lifeguard program and we’ve been very fortunate to have a lifeguard that works for one of their divisions out of [Meg-Sue] State Park, which is about two-and-a-half hours south of us here in California. Her name is Shannon Ingram and she has come and helped me develop this program for the last three years.

So the Junior Lifeguard Program, we host two sessions, one of them in Port Orford and then one at Harris Beach. We ran the Port Orford program for the last three years and then our Harris Beach session has been the last two years. So we’ve been serving around, I’d say 80 junior guards, on average, between the two sessions. And it’s a week-long program. We run it from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. And so the kids, we bring them into their open water environment. We teach them all the skills that they need to recreate safely in their shoreline and in their open water environment. We work with them on their physicality, their stamina. We teach them first aid, CPR, we teach them life saving skills. And then of course, every day we’ve got their favorite thing which is free time, where they pretty much get to do whatever they want in our guarded area.

We have some students that have done the program at least once, and are at the age of 14, and those students become our aides. So they help guard the program. And this year, or I should say in 2025, we’re hoping to bring a couple of those aides to a qualified event in California, where they’ll do an event, a run-swim event, where if they do it under a certain time, they’ll qualify to enter into the academy, which is in Huntington Beach. And we’re looking forward to possibly sending two of our aides down into that academy where they’ll become certified open water lifeguards under the California State Park Lifeguard Division system. And we bring them back here to help work our program. So we’re pretty excited about that opportunity.

It’s been really neat to see the program grow as much as it does every year and how much the kids really enjoy it, getting to teach them skills. We have quite a few volunteers that help with that. One of our collaborative partners with that is the Ascend After School Program. So we really just appreciate their help with all that.

Miller: Luke Martinez, thanks very much for your time. I appreciate it.

Martinez: Thank you.

Miller: Luke Martinez is the aquatic safety officer and a lifeguard for Curry County.

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