And I supsect, on some level, you know it.

Sure Mike, in a perfect world we’d have all that organization and legality around the program and a host of volunteers and plenty of funds to pay lawyers and accountants. But that misses the point — the point is to get lifeguards on the beach saving lives.

I think this is why many find your comments not helpful because all they do is refocus the problem (which is a lack of funding and volunteers) on some other problem which was never the issue with anyone but you. Which just leaves people who might want to volunteer money or time feeling that the program is somehow not working when it has already saved many lives.

Ryan and others have just gone ahead and got things done.

Why don’t you put your energies similarly into getting things done around the community instead of endlessly arguing about accountability? The needs are great. If you start an organization to address another community need, then by all means go ahead and setup all the controls and legalities around it that you feel are appropriate. But don’t tell other people how to run things that they’ve been running for years when your only involvement is armchair critic.

I’m simply putting forth a possible means for the much needed life guard program to gain access to a broader array of funding sources.

And Chet, with all due respect, it is not an issue of “analysis leading to paralysis”, nor is it an issue of unnecesary “complication” or that advocating for a more structured approach somehow impugns the eforts of earlier, more grass roots efforts.

This place is growing, I sometimes think too rapidly for its own good, given the lack of infrastructure.

More tourists on a beach like Playa Cocles, means more drownings and near drownings, given how VERY dangerous this beach can be.

Your “grassroots” life guard effort, with all its simplicity, is no longer enough to maintain safety on this beach, no matter how many boogie boards tourists bring with them from abroad and then donate for resale.

I love the grassroots concept, it’s just dangerously naive.

In this latest incident, as i’ve done a little more inquiring, it’s become clear to me that the people who most tried to help the gentleman who died were not local lifeguards.

They were two people trained in sophisticated life saving techniques by another concern in town.

The one local lifeguard on the beach was more concerned with weaving something that, I’m sure, he/she hoped to sell later to a tourist.

Ed Ryan has categorically said in these threads that the man did not drown.

his death was the result of a “heavy lunch and a few beers”.

My question is, “Is Mr. Ryan a coroner or licensed medical examiner?”

My understanding is the man may well have had a heart attack in the water, but that the level of foam and sputum that came out of his mouth as people, other than the life guard on duty, attempted to save his life, was indicative of a classic case of drowning.

PROFESSIONAL lifeguards on Playa cocles are desperately needed and need to be supported.

What i don’t understand is why some seem so hesitant to explore new venues and mechanisms that might help bring that reality about.

But, as a non Tico friend who’s been here much longer than me pointed out, “Mike, this isn’t really about lifeguards, it’s all about control.”

There’s no doubt that Playa Cocles needs the service, especially with much rougher seas looming on the immediate horizon.

I can only come at this from a US based non-profit background, so bear with me here a little.

If the life guard project is not already an incorporated, non-profit entity here in Costa Rica, to create such an entity could well be a means to expand fund raising capabilities so that the service everyone agrees is sorely needed can be expanded upon.

In the early years of the AIDS epidemic I was on the ground floor of the founding of an ASO on the North Shore of Massachusetts whose roots sprung out of our living rooms.

We were all meeting and scrambling to organize to help friends who were sick and dying and we had NO money.

When we started raising money via dances and cans in gay friendly stores and businesses in the town and region, it was a gay man with AIDS who told us to stop.

He said, “You can’t be raising this money without a legitmate non-profit organization in place for it to be donated to. You are leaving yourselves wide open to all kinds of accustaions and, even though all of you in this room no doubt mean well, you really have no control over the money.”

It was from him I first heard the term 501-3C, the legal term for a private, not for profit, charitable/public service organization.

So we formed one. The legalities of forming the corporation were not terribly complicated, the logistics of forming a board of directors and finding a director to over see day to day operations of the fledgeling organization, however were a different story.

People willing to volunteer to help suddenly got queasy about serving on the board of directors when they realized that, with the 501-3C status, they, if they served on the board, bore some degree of legal responsibility for the mgmt of any funds that were raised and dispersed in services.

But, we finally got a board together, I became the day to day director, which basically meant I documented the numbers of people we were helping and the types of help we were providing, so that, a few months down the road, we would have real stats to show potential funding sources, other than the people who came to the dances and threw their spare change in the jugs in local stores.

Within six months we got our first grant from the MA Dept of Public Health. within a year we had a small grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and things just started to rock and roll.

But it was all because that man, who died not long after, educated us about what we needed to do.

Now, hypothetically, let’s say the local life guard project were to name itself the “Playa Cocles Safe Swim Foundation”. It gets incorporated as a non profit organization, whatever that entails here in Costa Rica.

A board of directors gets formed with a prez, VP, secretary, and treasurer. Who, I would assume, by taking on those roles would have some degree of legal responsibility in terms of fiscal mgmt of the foundation.

There’s a director, apart from the board who, initially, would go back several years before the program was initiated and tally up the number of drownings and near drownings, assuming those records are available somewhere. Then that person would tally the number of drownings, near drownings, saves, and rescuitations after the program was is in place so that there’s a data base/track record demonstrating how the program has improved swimmer safety since its inception

With a board in place and that kind of data, the potential to expand fundraising beyond the local grasroots level, not that there’s ANYTHING wrong with that, would be enhanced.

I’m thinking of organizations like the International Red Cross and the Surfriders Foundation, both of which I know fund grass roots groups involved in a variety of causes, but only when those groups are incorporated with a structure in place that assures such donors that their money is managed well.

That is not to say lifeguard money has not been managed well to date, PLEASE, that’s not what I am implying.

I am talking about a more formal structure that, not only would take the magmt burden off of one or two people, but also possibly allow for expanding those fundraising options and possibilities.

Like I said, I am coming at this from a US based non profit perspective, so maybe everything I’ve said is a moot point. But let’s face it, we all agree that Playa Cocles, given its potential to be VERY dangerous, desperately needs a life guard project in place, and anything that would help secure its continued operation, and even its expansion, is something everyone should be willing to consider.

Just a bunch of thougts about the issue, nothing more, nothing less.

If i spoke out of turn, I apologize, but I raised the disappeared bull horn issue with the permission of the person who donated it.

Fund raising issues are so complicated that, coming from very rigid non profit background, my main point was, even if I did not express it well, that you have to be very careful about how money is raised and the accountability mechanisms that are in place.

To say that is not to accuse of wrong doing. It’s common sense.

The bigger issue, I believe, as threads after the last time post I posted here reveal, is the overall TRUST between people here.

I have no idea what the issues are, for example between the dive business and costa del papito, but it’s obvious they are intense and bitter.

I also am going to say someting that might get me in hot water again.

Despite all the idealistic talk of raising 10 to 15k for a life guard program, the reality is there are many days when Playa Cocles is SO dangerous to swim at that the beach should be closed. Lifeguards making a fraction of what lifeguards do in the states should not be asked to risk their own lives to save tourists, or any one else for that matter, too stupid not to see that Neptune is VERY hungry indeed.

Signs should go up saying, “Beach Closed, Swim At Your Own Risk”

That is what towns all along Cape Cod are doing.

The bottom line is the Lifeguard Program needs
help and perhaps this unfortunate death will be
the impetus to renew interest in seeing that the
program is adequately funded and staffed, instead
of falling on the shoulders of Eddie Ryan and
those caring individuals who have graciously
supported the program up to this time, I understand the frustration expressed, since without people like Eddie, Colin, and the businesses donating to the program to keep it
running, there would have been and would continue to be many more drownings.

Having worked for 30 years in the medical field in the USA, I have participated in hundreds of CPR
scenarios. The offer to provide an automatic external defibrillator would be a HUGE asset to the
Lifeguard Program, and would be the missing link
in providing CPR to a drowning victim. It is the
ONLY remedy to Cardiac standstill.

Regardless of what has happened (or not happened) in the past, perhaps a renewed effort is in order.

Puerto Viejo Satellite could serve as a medium
to keep this issue in the spotlight (hopefully
there are now more people donating to the program
via the internet).

Actions such as purchasing and providing more flotation equipment (Boogie Boards, Surfboards) at the lifeguard stand for rentals by the program would provide additional revenue.

Signage and donation boxes at the stand requesting donations from goodhearted tourists, as
well as in the lobbies of participating
businesses, hotels and Restaurants (similar to the donation boxes at Juan Santamaria Airport)would also assist in funding. (Who has not left Puerto Viejo without a pocketfull of loose change, which could be donated to the program on the way out of town).

Perhaps several times per year fund
raisers/cookouts could also be implemented.

The bottom line is its a dangerous ocean and although one would think that people would not swim when conditions are not appropriate, this is not always the case. The Lifeguard program is a critical need that needs to be addressed by the community as a whole, with cooperation rather than confrontation, which serves no useful purpose.

Raising 10-15 thousand dollars a year to fund
the program should not be an insurmountable goal,
and would be returned to community many times
over once Puerto Viejo gains the reputation as
being the safest Beach in Costa Rica, a goal which
through cooperation would be completely attainable.

I´d like to know when that happened. I have never heard of, met with, nor have ever been sollicited to support Mr.Ryan in his efforts to maintain a lifeguard service at Cocles, since Crocodive opened its doors.

As a matter of fact, the first I ever heard of his involvment and OF THE PROGRAM was with the initial reporting and clarification published by Doug on this incident.

I am the one who reported this incident to Doug. 2 trained Emergency First Responders affiliated with Crocodive were present at the scene. Both intervened. Both were categorical about what happened. Both called me and met with me at the beach about 2 hours after the incident. Both pointed out the lifeguard on duty in his tower, actively spinning thread on an artifact. Maybe next time, I’ll come with a camera and put it on YouTube.

But as others have pointed out, it really doesn’t matter. The net result is sadly one person dead, and on a more positive note, a better awareness through the controversy as to the plight this program and its sponsor, Mr. Ryan, are going through.

The fact of the matter is the program needs support and is having problems getting it. I for one, while regretting some of the inaccuracies of the first report, am glad to see that this issue has hopefully reawakened the interest and need to support this endeavour.

Mr.Ryan seems to prefer to shoot the messenger and I understand why. My intent never was to criticize the program.

Crocodive will participate in this program with more than just money, Mr. Ryan, if you are so willing. For example, we have a fully functional Automatic External Defibrillator and the trained personel to handle events requiring its usage. Or Interested? Let me know.