Water Safety: How I became ‘Dr. Drowns’

This year-end column will be a personal one, describing my own journey as an ocean safety advocate.

I arrived on Kaua‘i as a newly trained physician in 1972 and, as with many who move to Kaua‘i, one of the reasons I came here was for the ocean recreation environment. I was raised in Trinidad, a Calypso island in the Caribbean, and I loved to body surf. For many years here on Kaua‘i I was an avid and reasonably skillful body surfer, and I also got involved with diving and ocean fishing at various times. Sadly, I’ve run into a problem with my sinuses, and every time I go under water I get a serious full-blown sinus infection that requires two weeks of powerful antibiotics. After about my eighth back-to-back episode, I gave up my body-surfing — which may be why I have time on my hands to write columns.

Like any surfer, I had brushes with complete exhaustion and near death. (And this is what makes our “resident drownings” such an intransigent problem to eliminate). Meanwhile, in my professional life in the ER, I became all-too-familiar with the pitiful visitor drownings that continuously come in our doors, and I was aware of a couple of people who fretted about this. One was Percy Kinimaka, Kaua‘i’s own Duke-style beach-boy who lived aloha, including ocean safety awareness, for our Kauai Surf visitors and who officially trained many of our residents in CPR and lifesaving. Another was a kama‘aina from Kansas, a man named Bill Sollner. I’m not sure why he focused in on this problem, and he tried to make quite a bit of noise about it. At a couple of points he tried to get me interested in the problem, but I was too young to pick up on it. After living here many years some family matters took him back to Kansas, but to me he remains the grandfather of ocean safety advocacy on Kaua‘i, with Percy as the father.

There was a particular ER nurse that I worked with, and whenever a drowning victim would be brought in, we’d roll our eyes and say to each other “My God, another drowning, how come nothing gets done about it?” There came a day in 1990 when a drowning victim was brought in. I had nothing to offer the victim or the family other than my inadequate attempt to express my condolences and sadness and to try to answer some logistics questions. (We now have the great and expert service of the Beeper Team to help us with this.) After an hour or two, the victim was taken from the ER to the mortuary and I got back to treating other ER patients. Then within an hour another victim was brought in. By this time I was already emotionally drained, and even though I did my best to again carry out my inadequate professional role with the stunned family survivors, I felt like I was just going through robotic motions. This was the key day in my evolution into being an ocean safety advocate.

The next day I started asking around, if there were any groups or committees that were trying to address this issue. I was directed towards an entity called the Kaua‘i water safety task force, presided over by one Pat Durkin. He’s a career aquatic safety professional whose work has included years as a lifeguard, a trainer/teacher, a courtroom expert witness, a statistician, a program developer, a writer — to name a few of the things that an “aquatic safety professional” does. A couple of years prior, Pat had joined forces with Art Tani, who at that time was the Kaua‘i Health Department’s Injury Prevention Officer. (This position no longer exists). Usually Injury Prevention Officers are involved with seat-belt legislation and education, anti-drunk-driving campaigns, smoking prevention, etc. Pat convinced Mr. Tani that on Kaua‘i, drowning is every bit the problem that car accidents are (and, in fact, I believe Kaua‘i is the only U.S. county where there are as many drownings as there are motor vehicle fatalities), and the Task Force was born.

So … I joined the Task Force, and I slowly started understanding the scope of the problem and the work that needed to be done to impact the problem. I slowly began to get to know the “players” — our lifeguards and their supervisors, our politicians (who have the authority to add more lifeguards), some of our visitor industry professionals, O‘ahu lifeguards and experts and also other Neighbor Island professionals, and other concerned citizens. Over the next 16 years I’ve made this my little niche of Kaua‘i’s suffering (and even in paradise there is some very significant suffering, take my word for it) that I’ve been able to impact, and I’m so focused on it that friends occasionally and teasingly call me “Dr. Drowns.” Sometimes I myself question why I’m so focused on this one aspect of life on Kaua‘i when there are so many other troubles needing attention, on Kaua‘i and on the planet. My question is answered whenever I meet or hear of a family that is stricken by an unnecessary drowning. No my dear friends, I’m “Dr. anti-Drowns.”

My best professional qualities are dogged persistence and dependability. I’m well into my 60s and I’ve had plenty of opportunity to observe what leaders are and what qualities they possess, and frankly I’m not possessed of most of these leadership attributes. That is, I’m by nature a good worker bee. At one time a couple of decades ago, I had the opportunity to work my way up into a leadership position in the hospital, as so often happens when you perform your job well, and that’s when I learned that that’s not me. Simply because, however, of my persistence and dependability on ocean safety issues over the last 16 years I find myself being regarded as a leader in this area — a mantle I’m not particularly comfortable with, given my awareness that I don’t really have leadership attributes. But I’m very fortunate to be surrounded by a team that includes expert watermen and women, administrative experts, computer experts, statistical experts, political and legislative experts, communications experts, visitor industry experts — and I’ve found that by “networking” and keeping communications going among these talented people we’ve been able to bring about significant improvements in Kaua‘i’s tough and not-so-little problem.

We’ve added very significant numbers of lifeguards and equipment and we’ve added great professionalism to our Kaua‘i Ocean Safety Division, and this is the bedrock of ours or any ocean safety program. Yet what I’m most proud of is being part of an attitude shift amongst many of our island’s people, in particular our visitor industry employees. Pat Durkin, Beth Tokioka, and Sue Kanoho have been the stars in this. I can remember when the prevailing attitude was “It’s very sad about the drowning. But, if you do something stupid, you kind of have to accept what may come down.” This attitude has been largely replaced by “let’s find a moment to mention to our visitors that they need to use some caution.” The other day in the ER I was treating a visitor, and I forget how I happened to ask him where he was staying. He: “At the Hilton.” (This puts up red flags in my mind because of the fronting beach called Marine Camp, which has very dangerous currents). Me: “Ah, that’s a very nice hotel. By the way, what about swimming? Do you go swimming there?” He: “Oh no. When I checked in at the desk they warned me not to swim out front of the hotel because of the dangerous currents there, and they advised me to swim at lifeguarded beaches.” I put down my stethoscope for a moment and said a silent and personal prayer of thanks.

Now I won’t be silent: Thank you, Hilton! This is surely a very significant part of our aloha spirit and of our “Welcome to Kaua‘i” package. I mention you, our Hilton receptionist, knowing you are but one of the hundreds of other hotels’ check-in desk personnel and activities desk personnel, and also some of our vacation rental owners, who I know find these “be careful” moments each and every day when they talk with their customers. My warmest aloha and thanks to all of you this holiday season and in the New Year, and keep spreading the word. You will, I guarantee you, be blessed for it.

• Monty Downs is an emergency room doctor at Wilcox Memorial Hospital. His column appears every other Wednesday.