Call for Off-Season Emergency Phones Answered at Three Popular Beaches

About seven years ago, a man jumped into the ocean with his clothes and cowboy boots on to rescue two young girls who were being swept out to sea on their body boards by a riptide.

“The kids were washed back in with the surf, but the young man drowned,” recalled Denny Stoufer, lifeguard supervisor at Carlsbad State Beach, where the accident occurred.

It was during the off-season, in autumn, and lifeguard service had been reduced to patrols of the 13-mile stretch, Stoufer said. “If we had been there, it would have been a fairly routine rescue, but we were unlucky that time,” he said.

The scenario might have turned out differently if the call box unveiled Thursday near the drowning site had been there. Bystanders could have called for help on the free emergency telephone, Stoufer said.

Installed near the popular jetty near North Cannon Road, south of Tamarack Avenue, the call box was one of three switched on Thursday for a 90-day trial period, said David Johnson, a spokesman for the San Diego County Department of Public Works. Each will service an area frequented by swimmers and surfers--where accidents are most likely to occur.

Besides Carlsbad, the call boxes are at Oceanside Beach, across from the Coast Guard station and launching ramp, and at Ocean Beach, about half a mile south of the Ocean Beach Pier on Sunset Cliffs Boulevard, Johnson said.

It was because of an accident similar to the Carlsbad drowning that La Mesa Councilman Ed Senechal proposed the call boxes.

“I was reading in the newspaper about a year ago that two scuba divers had drowned off one of our beaches, and one of the reasons was we couldn’t get someone down there in time,” Senechal said. “If we had had a call box on the beach, it might have been a lifesaving thing.” The accident “stuck in my mind,” he said.

Senechal said he proposed the idea of beach call boxes to the San Diego Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies. The countywide agency has installed more than 1,000 call boxes along freeways throughout San Diego County.

Funds for the solar-powered cellular phones come from the state Department of Motor Vehicles and may be used only for freeway call boxes, said Senechal, who represents La Mesa on the authority. But the agency acted as a resource and coordinated the beach installations with GTE Cellular Communications Corp., which donated the call boxes. Each cost $3,000.

If the trial period proves successful, cities with beach property will have to come up with a plan to fund the boxes and dispatch services, Johnson said.

During the trial, the Carlsbad and Oceanside call boxes will be linked to police. The Sunset Cliffs emergency line will be linked to the San Diego Lifeguards Emergency Dispatch, which operates 24 hours a day.

Stoufer said he hopes both the City of Carlsbad and the state will fund the project after the trial.

“Because of budgetary restraints, lifeguards can’t always be there at the beach,” he said. In summer, lifeguards are on duty from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The call box could be used after-hours and in winter.