To help with in-water rescues and hopefully cut the time it takes lifeguards and dive teams to find a swimmer in need, the San Diego lifeguard service announced it has acquired two AquaEye scanners designed to use ultrasound and artificial intelligence technologies to point rescuers in the right direction.
The scanners, unveiled Wednesday at the lifeguard headquarters at Mission Bay, where Lt. Rick Romero, San Diego lifeguards dive team leader, compared the device to a flashlight or a thermal detector used by firefighters in that it emits a beam that can register information with the device.
“Some people may think it’s easy to find someone underwater, but it is not,” Romero said. “Conditions, visibility, depth, all are factors, so having this device will help us speed the process along. … It can scan the area for a possible target and then we send the divers down to that location to check it out. It can detect body tissue and objects as well.”
The device can be used on the surface or underwater to scan up to 15 feet. With the scan, lifeguards say, they can either dispatch crews to a location or eliminate it as a search area and move on.
“Being able to break down those areas quickly … is the task and goal of this device,” Romero said. “Usually how we operate is we interview the reporting party that saw someone go down. If they have a general idea, (we will) place a buoy as a marker and start our search pattern and search area from that spot. Sometimes they are small, sometimes they are huge. That’s where this comes in. In a giant area, it will scan the area quickly … until we locate the person.”
Romero said using the AquaEye also could reduce the physical resources and people needed to conduct the dives.
The cost per device is around $7,000 to $8,000, he said. All lifeguards are being trained to use it.
San Diego Fire-Rescue Department lifeguards responded to 8,041 water rescues, which he broke down to 22 per day.
Edited from La Jolla Light / SD U-T
