Last weekend’s tragic drowning in Coney Island has raised concerns about the number of lifeguards supervising local beaches.
Officials said that turbulent waves caused by last week’s storm surges swept 10-year-old Akira Johnson away from her cousin as the two played in the waves near West 23rd Street late Saturday afternoon.
City officials said four lifeguards one stationed on a jetty and three on the sand tried to rescue the girl and her cousin when they got caught in a strong current.
The lifeguards managed to grab Tyriek Currie, also 10, but Johnson was lost at sea and presumed drowned.
NYPD harbor units, U.S. Coast Guard units, lifeguards and volunteers searched the waves for the young girl throughout the evening and the next morning. The search had to be called off Sunday as another round of powerful storms slammed into the peninsula.
As this paper went to press, her body had yet to be recovered.
By late Tuesday, the search for Akira was continuing.
Those who know the girl, who attended P.S. 188 on Neptune Avenue, described Akira as bright, friendly and considerate.
“She was the sweetest girl and quite smart,” said area resident Scott Krivitsky, who taught her in the second grade. “She was also very responsible for someone her age.”
Saturday’s tragedy has caused local community activists to demand sweeping changes in how lifeguards are staffed in Coney Island.
“Under ideal circumstances, every bay is covered. What the Department of Parks has done in the past was cover Ocean Parkway, cover the area by West 8th Street and by Stillwell Avenue and close many of the bays beyond West 17th Street leaving community residents to walk up to Stillwell Avenue if they want to take a swim,” said Community Board 13 member Brian Gotlieb.
Yet a spokesperson for the city Parks Department said there are 1,140 lifeguards currently employed by the city – a record high.
“We have more lifeguards now than we’ve ever had before and we don’t think that the terrible tragedy at Coney Island was related to lifeguard staffing levels,” Phil Abramson said.
City Councilmember Domenic Recchia said the real issue is not lifeguards but ensuring that the public knows when strong currents and riptides are present. That’s why his office and the Parks Department will launch an informational campaign about beach safety.
“The Parks Department is going to be putting out handouts and giving them out at the beach and I’m doing one on awareness about riptides,” Recchia told this paper after a meeting with Parks Department and NYPD officials.
There’s also talk of creating a new system for informing the public about dangerous swimming conditions.
Currently, there is no citywide policy on riptides and strong currents. Instead, lifeguards can prohibit swimmers from wading too deep into the water.
“The lifeguard is able to close the beaches,” Abramson explained.
“If the waters are rough, I think the public should be aware of it,” Recchia said. “We’re working to try and get a system in place, whether it’s with different colored flags or signs.”
Krivitsky believes cutting the Atlantic Ocean down to size will help.
“They need to start roping off parts of the ocean where people swim and put in safeguards to stop people from going beyond a certain point. The lifeguards need to have some kind of control over how far people can go,” he said. “Right now, the oceans are controlling us, we’re not controlling the oceans.”
