{"id":1965,"date":"2019-08-19T03:14:42","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T07:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/?p=1965"},"modified":"2019-08-19T03:14:42","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T07:14:42","slug":"this-isnt-a-job-where-you-can-relax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/this-isnt-a-job-where-you-can-relax\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018This isn\u2019t a job where you can relax\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
RJ Hayman has been a lifeguard for 4 years<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Future pilot brings same approach to beach patrol job<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Monday, August 19, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UMES aviation student Russell Hayman<\/strong>‘s middle name is Joseph, but it could just as easily be \u201cvigilant.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the case on Independence Day 2019, when Hayman was involved in the rescue of a critically injured teen face down in the Atlantic Ocean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRJ,\u201d as he’s widely known, has been a lifeguard with the Ocean City Beach Patrol for four years and is a crew chief responsible for colleagues who man stands from 35th<\/sup> street to 43rd<\/sup> street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From his 38th<\/sup> street post, Hayman witnessed 19-year-old Ben Paepcke dive awkwardly into the surf on July 4.  He and Matt Egley, a first-year lifeguard who Hayman happened to be supervising at the time, sprang into action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hayman recalled being uneasy watching Paepcke enter the water head first at the surf’s edge.  It was low tide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paepcke broke the C5 vertebra in his neck and was in danger of drowning when the guards carefully pulled him from the water. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe response of RJ’s crew showed he had prepared them for any scenario,\u201d said Capt. Butch Arbin, the resort’s long-time lifeguard chief. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first (person) to arrive was a rookie,\u201d Arbin said, \u201cyet he performed like a veteran, which shows the type of training that he received — and was practiced under RJ’s direction.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rescuers employed the \u201cshallow water neck\/back extraction (technique), where,\u201d Hayman said, \u201cwe are preventing further damage to the spinal cord.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe spend multiple days training \u2026 to do (this) each season.  It’s very intense and we can’t afford room for error,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anne Hofmann, the mother of one of Paepcke’s friends who was on the beach that day, told journalists the lifeguard response she witnessed was almost instantaneous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
UMES-trained pilot R.J. Hayman is an Ocean City lifeguard crew chief<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHonestly,\u201d Arbin said, \u201cI believe the care Ben received saved his life, and minimized the extent of his injuries.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hayman said, \u201cThe training we received immediately kicked in.  You have one-to-two seconds to make a judgment call.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur job, from that point,\u201d he said, \u201cwas getting his airway exposed so he could breathe and (to) hold his head steady.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hayman grew up in Ocean City, the middle child of a veteran pilot who travels the world flying wide-body McDonnell Douglass MD-11 jets transporting packages.  It turns out the elder Hayman also worked nine summers as an Ocean City lifeguard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After RJ graduated from Stephan Decatur High School in 2015, he initially enrolled at Towson University thinking his career path was teaching history.  His particular interest – no surprise – is World War II aviation. (The B-17 is his favorite aircraft.). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hayman, 21, realized he also had flying in his genes and transferred to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore to pursue an aviation science degree<\/strong><\/a> with a concentration in becoming a pilot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt first, I took (what my father did) for granted,\u201d Hayman said.  \u201cBut as I got older, I found that it’s not such a bad career.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being aloft, he said, is \u201ca whole different feeling.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flying, Hayman said, demands intense concentration and attention to detail.  Working as a lifeguard requires many of those same skills because one person is responsible for the safety of hundreds of bathers along a two-block stretch of beach and an unpredictable ocean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’d say it’s the perfect summer job for me,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause you have a huge responsibility – just like you do when you are flying.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hayman said he wishes<\/strong> more of his peers would consider working as an Ocean City lifeguard because the experience \u201ccan teach you a lot of important life skills I know will be important to me down the line.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has already qualified to fly single-prop planes and has logged 200 hours of flight time, including 20 as a solo pilot.  He also has his instrument rating credentials and is now eyeing certification to fly dual propeller planes before his anticipated graduation in the spring 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paepcke, the injured swimmer, is at a rehabilitation facility in Denver where he’s receiving intense therapy for symptoms of paralysis. His long-term recovery prognosis is unclear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hayman said he tries not to dwell on what befell Paepcke that day, but does monitor a Go Fund Me page to track his progress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne big difference in this situation, compared to most others in my 47-year history with the patrol,\u201d Arbin said, \u201cis RJ’s continued care of the family and Ben.  Ninety-nine percent of all cases leave the beach and we have no additional contact with the family.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis incident has impacted RJ and his crew to such an extent that they are participating in fund-raising and awareness for Ben and his family,\u201d Arbin said.  \u201cHaving worked with RJ’s dad, I would not expect anything less.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several days after that Paepcke rescue, Hayman helped pull another swimmer from the water who also was face down and apparently experienced what he was told might have been a seizure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis isn’t a job where you can relax for one second,\u201d Hayman said.  \u201cAt the end of the day, we did everything we were trained to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His experiences this summer have been \u201ca huge learning moment for me in my life,\u201d he said.  \u201cHopefully we can prevent things like this from happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Future pilot brings same approach to beach patrol job Monday, August 19, 2019 UMES aviation student Russell Hayman‘s middle name is Joseph, but it could just as easily be \u201cvigilant.\u201d  That was the case on Independence Day 2019, when Hayman was involved in the rescue of a critically injured teen face down in the Atlantic Ocean. …Read more \u2018This isn\u2019t a job where you can relax\u2019<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-1965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1965"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=1965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}