STAR-ADVERTISER / 2021
A lifeguard on a watercraft patrols the Kapahulu Groin area in Waikiki.
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Ocean Safety needs its own city department (“Fold Ocean Safety into HFD, both in business,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, March 11). Taking these capable and dedicated lifeguards out of Emergency Medical Services only to drop them in with fire means to take them out of purgatory and put them straight into hell. Besides, fire does not even accept lifeguards unless they all go through the same training like firefighters. Ocean Safety needs to set its own standards, which is only feasible within its own department.
Ocean Safety needs a decent headquarters, substations and more personnel in all five districts around Oahu. Lifeguards deserve better than getting folded into another entity, looked down upon and underfunded.
Water and fire are opposites for very good reasons.
Sabine Haarmann
Makiki
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