SEA ISLE CITY – In a span of days, two lives were lost in the waves of Sea Isle City.
In both cases, an afternoon wave knocked a man to the sand, and injuries from the wave contributed to his death. In each case, good Samaritans and lifeguards sought to save their lives, pulling them from the water and starting CPR on the beach while ambulances rushed to the scene.
On July 31, Brian Zwaan, 58, of Berwyn, Pa. was pulled from the water at 86th Street. Police arrived at 2:43 p.m., when CPR was already underway, according to a statement from the Sea Isle City Police Department. Zwaan was pronounced dead at Cape Regional Medical Center at 4:40 p.m.
An autopsy found the cause of death to be head and neck injuries, complicated by drowning, according to information released by the city.
Next Drowning
Two days later, Aug. 2, another man was pulled from the water. The official report stated the 74-year-old man was knocked over by a large wave and remained underwater.
Nearby swimmers pointed the members of the Sea Isle City Beach Patrol to the victim, who was pulled to the beach, and CPR began immediately.
He was taken by helicopter to the AtlantiCare Medical Center, where he died in the early morning hours of Aug. 3. The name of the second man was not released. City spokeswoman Katherine Custer said the family requested that his name be withheld.
Deaths Ruled Accidental
The city announced the first death only after the second had taken place. Both were included in the same Aug. 3 press release.
The editor of The Herald has taken the city to task over the notification of the tragedies, which the newspaper only learned of after a reader wrote to the paper’s Spout-Off column.
“Armed with that Spout Off tip, we asked the city’s public information official about it Aug. 3. She dutifully forwarded the inquiry to the police department, which issued a press release that day announcing both tragedies,” wrote Editor Al Campbell in his Aug. 16 weekly column. “That’s not the way it ought to be; if there was an accident and it was caused by a threat to public safety, city officials, perhaps through their police department, ought to let the public know immediately.
“When thunderstorms loom, officials clear the beaches, what’s different about warning bathers about dangers under the water?”
“I don’t have a response to that. My only words would be a reminder that we always encourage people to apply caution when going into the ocean,” Custer said. For her part, Custer denied there was any delay in releasing the information.
No ‘Unusual Delay’
“I believe it was let out as it was formulated and clarified,” she said in an interview Aug. 21, after Campbell’s opinion piece appeared online and in print. “I don’t recall there being an unusual delay.”
She indicated that the information was released within days of the first tragedy.
“When these things occur, they have to make sure the families are contacted. It’s never an easy process, as you can imagine,” she said.
In a telephone interview, she stated that she had heard no reports of the waves being exceptionally large or dangerous either July 31 or Aug. 2 or of any other exceptional dangers in the water that week.
Beach Patrol Lauded
In the interview, she said the city’s beach patrol was praised this year in a report from the Atlantic County Municipal Joint Insurance Fund as being dedicated to safety for its members and the public. The report singled out veteran lifeguard Capt. Renny Steele, stating that he “appears to exemplify the commitment to safety for lifeguards and the public necessary for a safe day at the beach.”
Warning System
This year, Sea Isle’s beach patrol has initiated a new warning system for swimmers.
Green is for the lowest danger from waves or currents, although Custer stated the city still urges caution in the water. Yellow signifies moderate danger.
Custer said the flags on the guard stands were yellow each day.
“Red is the high hazard indicator,” she said. Officials have the authority to close the beach to swimming if they believe there is a danger. “Safety first is always our main concern.”
Custer could not say whether either man was in the water in front of a lifeguard stand.
“I can tell you that our lifeguards are very diligent about keeping people swimming only in front of the lifeguard stand,” she said.
Mayor Leonard Desiderio did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Police Chief Thomas D’Intino or Sea Isle City Lifeguard Capt. Steele.
Advisors’ Views
Some who have worked as public information officers for other shore towns asked to speak anonymously to allow greater candor, were split on the obligation of notifying the public when tragedy strikes.
One said if there were an unusual or ongoing danger, then the town should immediately alert the public. But the source said that did not seem to be the case in the Sea Isle City incidents.
There were no unusually larger or dangerous waves at that time. It seemed more a tragic coincidence that these two people died under similar circumstances in the same week, the source said.
Another source, who has also worked as a spokesman for a tourism-dependent shore town, took a different tack, suggesting that when something happens in a very public place, the town ought to release as much information as possible as soon as possible, so that visitors and residents understand what happened instead of relying on rumor or second-hand stories.
For instance, if there were a fire or something happens on the beach in front of hundreds of people, a municipality should be as transparent as possible and give details right away. The only exception this person could see would be a suicide that took place in private.
No Legal Obligation
One area of agreement: there is no legal obligation for a town to release information about drownings, fires, or other tragedies within its borders.
In New Jersey, police are required to release information about crimes and arrests. Police are obligated to release information on the type of crime committed, the location and if there was a weapon involved in cases where there has not been an arrest.
If an arrest has been made, the name of the person arrested, along with the age and other identifying information, the charges filed, and information on the investigating and arresting officer and more must be released within 24 hours.
Agencies Can Be Mum
The state Open Public Records Act further outlines what information the public is entitled to have.
But that obligation only exists if a reporter or other member of the public asks for the information. There is no law stating departments have to volunteer anything.
Just the same, most law enforcement agencies have a policy of releasing information on major incidents with or without a request, at the local, county, state and federal level.
There’s Social Media
Many departments and emergency responders, such as fire companies, reach out directly to the public through Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, releasing information on arrests and emergencies through these and other outlets.
The Sea Isle City Police Department has accounts on Twitter and Facebook. Postings this summer include warnings of severe weather and a photograph of officers helping motorists stranded in high water. The release on the drownings was not posted.
The New Jersey Association of Chiefs of Police has developed a recommended policy for local departments dealing with news media, which includes appointing a public information officer, and cooperating with media, so long as it does not compromise safety or the ongoing investigation of a crime.
A call to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs press office to discuss this specific issue was not returned.
10 Drownings
The summer of 2017 has been a difficult one for drownings. There have been deaths in pools, lakes, quarries and the ocean through the summer. A report from Philly.com put the number of ocean drownings at 10 this year, including the two in Sea Isle City and one other in Cape May County, Ismail Ahmed Abdelmonem Ismail, a 24-year-old from Egypt who was working on the Wildwood boardwalk. His body washed ashore in June. Authorities have ruled that an accidental drowning, but do not know where he entered the water.
Rip Currents
There have also been hundreds of successful rescues throughout the shore; most taking place after someone has been pulled out to sea from a rip current.
The National Weather Service in Mount Holly has warned that rip current danger is high this summer.
But from the information available, it seems that the force of the waves was the danger in the Sea Isle City fatalities, rather than rip currents.
No Reliable Record
It is difficult to track the number of spinal cord injuries that take place on the county’s beaches each year. In previous interviews, even lifeguards have said they can’t say definitively.
If someone is injured in the surf, lifeguards and first responders will place the victim on a board in case there was damage to the spinal cord, but they typically will never find out what happened after the victim was taken from the beach to the hospital.
Fighting for Awareness
In Cape May, Chad deSatnick launched a campaign to bring awareness of the danger of spinal cord injuries after he was seriously injured riding a wave.
Doctors told him he might never walk again, but he recovered and sought to warn others of the dangers. In June, he helped host an event called “They Will Surf Again” on the Wildwood Beach, bringing people with some form of paralysis to ride waves on adapted surfboards.
After deSatnick’s injury in 2001, some in the Cape May area and beyond pointed to Cape May’s beach replenishment project. The city was one of the first in the area to see its eroded beaches built up in a federal project through the Army Corps of Engineers.
Before the project, there was very little beach between the Promenade and the ocean anywhere in the resort at high tides.
After the project, and subsequent renourishment projects, Cape May has wide beaches, but many locals have said the beach has never been the same.
Some have argued that the steeper slope of the beach means a greater likelihood of injuries from waves. The question was the topic of an extensive article in Scientific America in June 2013, which included information on deSatnick’s injuries.
Corps’ Aim: Safety
According to the Army Corps of Engineers, beaches constantly change through erosion and storms.
Army Corps spokesman Steve Rochette stated that there is no scientific evidence linking beach projects to spine and back injuries.
“Safety is our number one priority,” reads a statement released from the corps. “Our beach nourishment projects are formulated and designed to be safe, and their purpose is to reduce risk from erosion, waves, and inundation caused by coastal storms to the communities behind them.
“There is no scientific research that we are aware of that correlates beach nourishment and injuries,” it continues. “The nearshore beach is a very dynamic environment, one where the beach profile adjusts to its equilibrium all under Mother Nature’s influences through its changing tides, waves, and currents.”
Slope Not to Blame
Sea Isle City’s beaches were rebuilt in 2015, part of an extensive project to restore beaches after Hurricane Sandy.
In Sea Isle City, Custer said she had heard no reports that the beach replenishment or the slope of the beaches played any part in the two deaths this summer.
To contact Bill Barlow, email bbarlow@cmcherald.com.
