Alameda Public Safety Agencies Respond to Beach Death

The day after the  of a man off Alameda’s Crown Beach, the agencies involved in the rescue efforts responded to criticisms that they didn’t do enough to save his life.

The man’s body was pulled from the water about an hour after he entered. On Monday evening, the Alameda County Coroner's Office identified him as 52-year-old Raymond Zack.

The drowning prompted the Alameda Fire Department’s new interim chief to revoke a policy forbidding firefighters from participating in any water rescue efforts and to call for a return of the department’s defunct water rescue program. In 2009, budget constraints led to the cancelling of that program and a policy that confined firefighters to dry land during Monday’s emergency.

“When I heard that, I said that is not satisfactory," said Mike D’Orazi, who took over as Alameda’s acting fire chief just last week. 

D’Orazi said Tuesday he would allow Alameda firefighters to participate in water rescues at the discretion of each incident’s commander and that he would also work to re-establish the water rescue program in Alameda.

On Monday, the lack of land-to-water rescue capability hamstrung the public agencies’ rescue efforts. 

A 911 call at 11:31 a.m. alerted the Alameda police and fire departments to an apparently suicidal man who had walked into the water near Shoreline Drive and Willow Street. Alameda emergency personnel responded to the scene, calling on cooperating agencies for assistance.

The Coast Guard received notification of the incident at 11:35 a.m., according to Coast Guard Petty Officer Pamela Boehland.

A 25-foot rescue boat was launched from the Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco, the nearest location of such a craft. It arrived in the area at 12:10 p.m., she said.

Unfortunately, because of the boat’s size, it was unable to get closer than a mile to Zack, Boehland said. 

“Because of the depth of the water where the person was, we were unable to respond and that’s why the helicopter was called to the scene," she said. 

With the Alameda’s Fire Department water rescue team defunct, and the Alameda Police Department not having one —  “Water rescue is not something police departments do,” said Alameda Police Spokesman Lt Sean Lynch, “that is typically the purview of fire departments” — there was no land-base force prepared to launch a rescue attempt.

Former Fire Chief Dave Kapler’s March 2009 order forbade Alameda’s firefighters from even entering the water to attempt rescue.

“I know some people feel like someone should have gone in after him,” said Lynch, “but if we send police officers out there to the 6-foot-3, 280-pound adult man they’re not going to be able to take their gear, and they’re out there in 55-degree water exposed to the same elements that the individual had placed himself in to end his life.”

The risk of injury, either from the man himself, or from the Bay’s frigid waters, was great, said Lynch.

“We know that suicidal people obviously have little regard for their own life and safety and they often have little regard for the lives and safety of those trying to rescue them,” he said.

Lynch said the man could have been armed or simply a danger to a would-be rescuer because of his size and his intent.

“The difference between rescuing someone who wants to be rescued and someone who is trying to kill themselves is dramatic, and that’s something we have to take into consideration as we respond,” Lynch said.

In 2000s, Alameda developed a comprehensive water rescue program after a 1999 incident in which a teenager drowned and a firefighter was severely injured in an attempted rescue in water near the Bay Farm Bridge.

“We want to make sure that our crews’ hands are not tied,” D’Orazi said. “I’ve directed the training division to evaluate the equipment we still have for water rescue and see what we what we can do to fast track the training to get our swimmers recertified,” he said.

Responding to criticism that the police department is so rule-bound officers wouldn’t jump in the water to rescue a child, Lynch said that every situation is different and requires the guidance of training and experience as well as on-scene judgment.

“I can say from experience that many times police officers have put themselves in the water — I have put myself in,” he said. “But this wasn’t a small child near a dock, this was an almost-300-pound adult male who was trying to kill himself in freezing waters a good distance from the shore.” 

The Coast Guard helicopter that responded was out on a training mission when the call for help came in. It had to return to base at Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco, refuel, get the proper crew – which included a trained rescue swimmer — and come to Alameda. 

While there are multiple Coast Guard helicopters stationed at the San Francisco Air Station, it takes time to prep them for flight, Coast Guard’s Boehland said.

“When a helicopter flies it has to go through a system of checks,” she said. “This was already up in the air, so it was actually quicker to bring it back, refuel it and switch the crew because it had already gone through a preflight safety inspection.”

The helicopter arrived at the scene at 12:27 p.m., just about the time the man was being pulled from the water by , Boehland said. The coroner has not yet determined if Zack died from hypothermia or drowning.

The Coast Guard has a mission to rescue people in the water, says Boehland, but a key rule is not to put a rescuer at risk. 

“At some point you’re putting another life on the line to get in the water,” she said. “Safety is our rescuers' top priority. You don’t want to create more rescue situations than you have rescuers.”

“This was a tragedy,” said Lynch. “But the tragedy could have become a catastrophe very easily.”

"It is always tragic when someone takes his own life, but I think it is misdirected to blame someone else for what this individual did," Lynch said.

“Our hearts go out to the family of this man,” Boehland said.