Justin Becker recalls when rescuers pulled a Kenmore man from Lake Washington last August.

The man had enjoyed a day at the O.O. Denny Park beach with his family when it started to get dark. A nearby couple lost their ball out in the lake, and since they noticed the man had been swimming that day, the girlfriend asked the man if he could retrieve the ball.

“So he swam out and through exhaustion he got himself into trouble,” said Becker, a Kirkland Fire lieutenant who has run the department’s technicians-level training program since 2009. The department has trained swimmers who respond to about 25 water rescues in Kirkland per year on average. “So then his wife went out to try to help him as well and the girlfriend went out and it ended up being we had three victims in the water. Unfortunately, the husband was underwater before we got there.”

Kirkland Fire water rescuers and other responding agencies saved the panic-stricken women, who swam more than 100 yards offshore, said Becker.

But the man drowned; divers found him at 52 minutes.

Contrary to the many water rescues that have saturated regional media headlines in recent weeks, Becker said that Kirkland Fire responds to water rescues year-round.

“It happens a lot and it happens throughout the year,” Becker said of water rescues, noting the department has responded to many water rescues during the winter as well, especially alcohol-related New Year’s incidents.

But drownings in Kirkland occur “a lot more than people think,” he said. About 10 people drown here on average every year along the nearly 13 miles of shoreline.

Drowning prevention

While there hasn’t been a drowning fatality in Kirkland this year, the Kirkland Fire Department has responded to seven water rescues so far.

The biggest change this year in the city of Kirkland that will help prevent drowning is lifeguards are now on duty at three waterfront parks: Juanita, Waverly and Houghton beach parks.

“Last year, the city didn’t have the funding; they cut lifeguard staffing way back,” Becker noted.

But this year, lifeguards will be on duty at the three beaches from noon to 6 p.m. daily through Sept. 2.

“We rarely have water rescues when people are swimming in designated areas,” Becker said. “Most of our rescue situations or body recoveries are where people are swimming outside of the designated areas or outside of the timeframes when there’s a lifeguard … That’s really important to us that the city funded that and got those lifeguards back out there.”

With activities such as paddle boarding and kayaking becoming more popular on Lake Washington and increasing Kirkland Fire’s call volume for water rescues, Becker said it’s also important for people to know their equipment.

Last year, Kirkland Fire water rescuers tried to rescue a paddle boarder who fell off his board, but couldn’t find the manual inflation on his inflatable life vest, said Becker. The man wasn’t attached to his board and he ended up drowning.

“He had a life jacket on, he just didn’t know how to use it and he didn’t know how to swim as well,” he said.

Becker noted it is also important for anyone out on the water to understand that the water is cold throughout the year.

“So we get a lot of calls for overturned boats or where people fall off their paddle board in that cold water and they can’t get back up on their platform,” said Becker. “They get cramped and hypothermic really quick in the water. Lake Washington hovers around 55 degrees all year round.”

He said the top 10 inches of water warms up in the summertime around 70 degrees.

“One thing people don’t understand is as soon as you get a lot of boat waves or wind waves, it churns up that water and everything is 50 degrees. So if you go out right after a wind storm or a lot of boat traffic, the lake is considerably colder than on a nice calm flat day. That gets a lot of people in trouble too. They’ll jump in, get hypothermic and get into trouble.”

Becker outlines several other safety tips that people can follow to prevent drowning:

• If you are swimming alone or swimming outside of a designated swim area, wear a life jacket.

• Avoid alcohol when you’re swimming or near water.

Across the U.S., 88 percent of drowning victims weren’t wearing a life jacket and more than half the drownings involved alcohol, Becker said.

• Anybody venturing out into the lake needs to know and stay within their limits.

Becker said the department generally sees this issue with people in the 10-30 year age range more than young children. For example, novice swimmers trying to keep up with more experienced swimmers leads people to trouble, he said.

• Be familiar with your swim area.

“One major component in our drownings with the 10 and younger age group is an unfamiliarity with the lake,” said Becker.

He noted off most Kirkland parks, the depth gently slopes down for the first 30 feet out from shore and then rapidly drops off to depths exceeding 60 feet.

“Parents see their young ones playing near the shore and think they are safe, not realizing they are next to a steep ledge,” he said, adding for children ages 1 to 17, drowning is the second-leading cause of accidental death in Washington state.

• Be aware of King County’s swimming ordinance on the lake. If you are swimming outside of a designated swim area, you must stay within 50 feet of the shore or a structure such as a dock.

Water rescues

Many people are unaware that the Kirkland Fire Department handles water rescues, said Becker.

But all 89 firefighters are required to be trained at the operations level, which means they can help support any water rescue. The majority of firefighters are also certified as rescue swimmers and are technician-level trained personnel.

Kirkland Fire also trains Redmond firefighters at both levels.

Becker, who was a lifeguard throughout high school and several years after, took over the program in 2009. Every May when he conducts the annual technician-level training for firefighters, he chooses a new Kirkland park and gets them “swimming in that cold water so they know what they’re going to encounter,” Becker said.

Last May, they trained at David E. Brink Park. Becker and some instructors hid several adult- and child-size mannequins under the condominiums over the lake. The mannequins have built-in buoyancy compensators so instructors can control their buoyancy and hide them as shallow or as deep as they need to.

“We hid them amongst all those pilings in the dark,” Becker said. “The technicians had to use their lights to get down and find them. A lot of our rescues happen at night, or they occur in the daytime right at evening so we’re searching at night. So when you’re out there swimming in the dark and shining the light through the weeds it’s different. They found all the mannequins.”

When the firefighters perform an actual water rescue, they rely on witnesses to help triangulate a point of rescue for the firefighters.

“We tell them to pick a house on the opposite shore – something in line with where they last saw the victim,” Becker noted. “Once they’ve pick that line, then we start sending our rescue swimmers out.”

Rescuers use a datum buoy – a weighted buoy – that the swimmer drops into the water and the rescuers use as a starting point.

“In the last 12 years, every time we’ve dropped a datum marker, it’s been within 10 feet of the victim. So it’s highly accurate,” he said.

In the case with the Kenmore man at O.O. Denny Park, rescuers dropped the datum buoy, which was only 5 feet from the man’s left hand, Becker said.

Kirkland Fire currently works in conjunction with the Seattle Police Department, Mercer Island dive team and King County Marine, which provides Kirkland’s dive capability and those agencies can search deeper.

Kirkland Fire is currently ramping up its water rescue program and trying to get its own dive program, said Becker.

“King County is losing their funding more and more every year and it’s getting harder and harder to get them to respond with a full dive team where they can actually get into the water,” he noted.

Kirkland’s biggest challenge is the department doesn’t have its own boat or a working platform to get out on the lake. Becker said the department is currently looking at potentially getting its own boat and jet skis.

“So if we have somebody who’s out hundreds of yards, our swimmers have to swim that. If it’s a paddle boarder or an over-turned kayak and you’re out 300 or 400 yards and you swim out that distance, our team is exhausted,” said Becker. “So we’re working right now to try to get jet skis – one jet ski in the north end and one jet ski in the south end just for rapid response out.”

Kirkland Fire is looking at other models across the country, such as LA County, Florida and Hawaii and what they do for water rescue. They utilize jet skis because they’re fast, they’re very inexpensive and they’re easy to maintain, said Becker.

“We’ve got a really well, highly trained team and they’re really effective at what they do,” he said. “So if we added that next step into the program I think that would make things a lot safer for the rescuers and the citizens.”