Long Beach docudrama warns swimmers of drowning risks

IN THE SCRIPT, a child has drowned in the ocean off Long Beach. Two detectives knock on an apartment door, big guys wearing dark suits and bad-news faces who flash badges. Cut to Mom and Dad, bewildered at first, desperate when the knowledge dawns: it was their kid. Mom sucks in air. "My God!" she says.

This City of Long Beach production, filmed last week, is the community's latest weapon in a perennial battle against rip currents that can be lethal to unsuspecting swimmers.

Last summer, a 19-year-old college student who was with friends and a 12-year-old girl on a class field trip drowned off Long Beach.

"The ocean is the soul of this city," said City Manager Charles Theofan. "But we don't want people to die here."

The city invested about $10,000 to make the 10-minute short, which is being made to warn others of the water's dangers.

Often it's young men who engage in the riskiest behavior, said head lifeguard Paul Gillespie. "It's that macho thing. They're not experienced, they think they can body surf in big waves. They want to show off with their friends."

This year's victims succumbed in areas without lifeguards, or while lifeguards were not on duty.

Nicole Suriel, the Harlem sixth-grader whose family is suing New York City after she drowned in Long Beach waters on a June public school field trip, didn't fit the profile of thrill-seeker or show-off. But the Suriel family's attorney, Oliver Storch, said the movie's warning could have helped. "Had this video been in place earlier, perhaps the senseless loss of their daughter could have been averted."

Directed by David Feldman and produced by Liz Byrne, both Long Beach residents, the movie will feature interviews with Theofan, Long Beach police spokesman Bruce Meyer and Gillespie.

During a morning shoot last week at City Hall, Gillespie's message to swimmers contemplating going in without a lifeguard on duty was this: "Don't even put a toe in the water. You step in a hole, next thing you know you're dragged out."

An afternoon scene enlisted part of the city's police force and dozens of lifeguards in a rescue attempt that ultimately fails. Originally, Feldman wanted to include circling helicopters. That proved impossible because of flight restrictions with the United Nations in session, but it may have been just as well: some Long Beach residents have come to dread the sound of whirring blades.

"If it goes right by," said Byrne, "we figure it's Donald Trump. But if it hovers, they're out there looking for somebody's kid. I cringe."

DROWNINGS AT LONG BEACH

MAY 26 Just before this year's Memorial Day weekend, college student Emanuel Tiburcio, 19, drowned after going to Long Beach with friends on a day with strong rip currents. The friends told authorities he didn't know how to swim. His remains later washed up on nearby Atlantic Beach.

JUNE 22

Sixth grader Nicole Suriel, 12, drowned while swimming off Long Beach during a field trip from her Harlem school. No lifeguards were on duty during the outing. Her teacher, who would later be fired for poorly supervising the children and the trip, was injured while trying to rescue Nicole.

JULY 2008

Within days of each other, a 29-year-old Wantagh man pulled from the Long Beach water died on the way to the hospital, and a Levittown man was killed and his cousin presumed missing after the two played football in the water and were swept into the surf.