Watchdogs on the waves

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The Beach Strip
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Hamilton Beach Rescue Unit has five decades guarding the lake
The Spectator
September 1/1992
THEY ARE the guardians of the Beach Strip.
Beginning as air raid volunteers in the 1940s, they became a volunteer fire department before finally becoming the Hamilton Beach Rescue Unit in 1958.
The yellowed pages of the unit's scrapbook are filled with newspaper clippings and photos attesting to five decades of service. People on the Beach Strip volunteer because they feel the community needs them, says Captain Carlo Calligaro, 50.
When the pagers beep and the sirens howl, the volunteers rush to the unit's headquarters at 316 Beach Boulevard. The adrenalin surges. "Everybody gets really pumped up," Capt. Calligaro says.
"You can never tell what's going to happen out there."
Standby
During the summer, one of the unit's boats sits on standby on a lakeside lift. Once the Coast Guard or regional police sound the alarm, the unit can be on the water in under five minutes, responding to calls from the Burlington Canal lift bridge to Fifty Point.
The unit patrols the lake every weekend and holiday during summer, and is on call 24 hours a day all year.
"There's a lot of blood, sweat and tears," says Bill Dean, 60. His son serves on the unit, and his 84-year-old father is a retired member.
Sometimes the work is grim — dredging the lake for the body of a drowning victim or suicide. Other times it is routine — towing a boat that runs out of gas. Occasionally what starts as a routine call takes surprising twists.
About three years ago, the unit was bringing a body in from the lake when lightning struck the boat. It blew several holes — some as large as golf balls — in the bottom, fried all the electrics and disintegrated the antenna.
One time the unit rescued a father, and a son and his fiancee, who were due to be married the next day. When rescuers pulled the trio out of the lake, the woman was unconscious and the father was "in pretty bad shape," recalls retired chief Bill Pennell, 63. Not only did they all survive, they recovered sufficiently to go ahead with the wedding as planned, Mr. Pennell says.
Members are always eager to recount stories of the searches and rescues. Inside the headquarters and clubhouse, about a dozen retired and off-duty members drink beer in the small, wood-panelled bar.
Covering the walls are embroidered crests of the fire department-turned-rescue unit, photos of the crews over the past five decades and of the boats they have used.
A person has to be nominated by a member in ordor to join. It remains an ,all-male group, and members don't seem eager to change that. Wives and girlfriends help with the funraising, they say, but no women have applied to join the rescue unit.
If one applied, "we'd consider them," one member says. The unit has about 28 members, all of whom have cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and St. John Ambulance first-aid training. Most live on the Hamilton Beach Strip, which has a population of about 1,100.
The unit has two boats — an 18-footer and a 21-footer — as well as two dinghies and a four-wheel-drive vehicle. It gets money from the region but also raise its own funds.
"There are a lot of good men in the beach rescue unit," says Constable Mike Mullaley of the Hamilton-Wentworth police's marine unit. "We have good working rapport with them (the unit) and have had over the years."
Members of the Hamilton Beach Rescue Unit say that as long as people use the lake for recreation, they will be ready to respond to assist people in distress.

Spec picture Barry Gray, The Spectator
Scott Young, left, and Rejean Comeau scan shoreline from their beach rescue unit boat.

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