NYPD highlights beach safety and water rescue tips for kids at Rockaway Beach
FAR ROCKAWAY, Queens (WABC) -- As the heat ramps up and people flock to the beaches to cool off, the NYPD wants to remind families how to stay safe in the water.
Officers held an education session on beach safety and water rescue awareness on Monday.
Santiago Reynoso, 17, learned what it's like to be a member of the NYPD's Scuba team - a specialized unit that conducts search and rescue operations in New York City's waterways.
"It was actually a lot of fun, even just like watching them do the things and especially holding what they had, because...it's heavy, surprisingly," Reynoso said.
The demonstration is important particularly after this past Friday when a 22-year-old man was reported missing in the water near Beach 20th Street. Police units on the ground, the water and the sky searched for him all weekend.
On Monday afternoon, police said they found a body off the beach near 25th Street in the Rockaways and are looking into whether it is the swimmer who vanished.
And a week earlier, an unidentified man's body was found floating near Beach 97th Street.
"We don't want to come here, we don't want to be an ever presence, present presence here, we don't want to be an often presence here," said Det. Robert A. Rodriguez with the NYPD Scuba team. "Most of the time, we're diving for evidence, but bodies are part of our repertoire. So, yeah, we don't want to do this too often."
A few dozen kids from different NYPD summer programs attended the demonstration where officers explained how important it is to read signs at the beach, swim near lifeguards, ask questions and learn what to do when there's a rip current.
Some of the kids had never even heard of a rip current. And Lesly Yepez says she doesn't really know how to swim, but does like to cool off in the ocean.
"A lot of people don't take water safety seriously, I was one of them before coming here," Yepez said.
For Det. Tanya Duhaney of NYPD Community Affairs, she's glad the children felt engaged in the lesson, but hopes it's also a reminder that water safety needs to be introduced earlier.
"Mostly it's the teenagers that come out here after hours, there's no lifeguard, and those are the ones that tragically sometimes lose their lives," Duhaney said. "And we don't want that."
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