A Life Saving Legacy: Wyatt Werneth

A Life Saving Legacy: Wyatt Werneth

Wyatt Werneth began his career approximately in 1994 after serving an 8 year commitment with the United States Navy. While in college Wyatt had started his own diving business. One day while working at a marina, Wyatt met a volunteer firefighter from the Cape Canaveral Volunteer Fire Department. After meeting them Wyatt joined the Cape Canaveral volunteer fire department, and he also tried out for the Brevard County lifeguards. It didn’t take long before Wyatt was improving his skill set by attending fire college and EMT school to become a better lifesaver. Lifeguarding came natrual for Wyatt and he excelled in rank very quickly. His first year he became a Lieutenant and the following year he became a Captain running his own lifeguard team.

In 1996 Wyatt was introduced to politics. It came in the form of contracting with the county and the customer not being very happy with the County lifeguard relationship. Port Canaveral was controlled by Delaware North, which is a huge organization that manages parks like Jetty Park. Delaware North turned to the Cape Canaveral volunteer fire department and requested that the fire department manage the lifeguards. It was a simple solution to offer the supervisor position to Wyatt since he was a volunteer at the fire department and had been a very successful captain for the County lifeguards. Being that the county was only part-time and all lifeguards had to find part-time work until the next season Wyatt jumped at the opportunity to go full-time with the fire department. By 1997 the fire department had successfully formed a lifeguard division of the fire department with Wyatt in command. Wyatt got right to work and immediately trained and implemented the United States life-saving Association standards. Before the year ended Cape Canaveral lifeguards had been certified as an advanced US LA certified life-saving organization. The very first year the lifeguards proved invaluable by making a rescue which earned Wyatt and the team EMT of the year. Wyatt implemented many improvements from what the County lifeguards had had such as the first defibrillator and rescue watercraft at Jetty Park. Wyatt was also very successful in forming a competition team which included Cape Canaveral lifeguards and Brevard County. Getting donations for surf dory surf skis and paddle boards which allow the competition team to be more competitive among the Southeast region lifeguard competitions.

After spending two years as a supervisor of Cape Canaveral lifeguards and a part-time lifeguard with Brevard County the public safety director personally offered Wyatt position as the chief lifeguard for Brevard County. After much consideration and respectfully requesting the Cape Canaveral volunteer fire department chief’s blessing to move on. Wyatt accepted the position as Brevard County ocean rescue chief 1999. It was January 2000 and Wyatt had to work quickly in order to train over 100 lifeguards to begin the spring break and summer season. It was not easy and Wyatt had large shoes to fill behind the lifeguard Chief Alan Campion who had trained Wyatt. With the tremendous support from the public safety director Jack Parker and the public safety manager Randy Jackson, Wyatt was given all the tools to accomplish this task. Wyatt even had to build lifeguard towers from scratch. With the support and help from the Daytona lifeguards Wyatt went to Daytona and measured and counted every board to duplicate the towers that they had for Brevard County. It may seem hard to believe but Wyatt accomplished ordering all of the necessary equipment and uniforms training 100 lifeguards building 13 towers by himself establishing a new lifeguard headquarters, and getting acquainted with county policies and procedures and operating as an active lifeguard all in less than four months. Wyatt did not stop there he even coordinated the very first awards banquet. He also established the very first Brevard County ocean rescue rookie class 001 to recognize all lifeguards from that point forward as well as to instill pride in Brevard County Ocean rescue. In 2004 Wyatt joined the United States Coast Guard and soon after that became a naval officer for the Navy Sea Cadet Corp as a special warfare orientation course instructor.

The following years were not easy with a limited budget part-time staff working only 110 days of the year to try and protect 72 miles of oceanfront in Brevard County. There were record numbers of drownings throughout the years due to a lack of support for the lifeguards. Wyatt found a mentor and support from the public safety director only for a short time until 2004 when Jack Parker ran for Sheriff and was elected. Jack Parker helped Wyatt set goals that he was able to meet in less than five years except for one that became elusive when support from the county had faded and the lifeguards fell under the County fire department. Let’s look at the positive

• Wyatt accomplished pay increases the first special risk retirement for lifeguards in the state
• Enclosed towers implementation of the beach warning flag system and flagpoles by A1 A for easy recognition of conditions for the public
• A second full-time position attended one of the first surf rescue officer instructor classes presented by Jim McCarthy
• Built a formidable USLA competition team
• Was a member of a goodwill humanitarian trip to Haiti representing Brevard
• County Safe surfer educational program beach safety week awareness outreach visiting schools and setting up lectures at libraries for the County
• Informed new arrivals of Patrick Air Force Base members regarding the dangers of the ocean and beach environments
• Help both the state and national Park service’s meet USLA standards
• Created videos implemented in hotels regarding public safety announcements about rip currents in beach dangers
• The first lifeguard to join a County fire department inaugural honor guard team
• Hosted 2 USLASE regional competitions
• Hosted a national Board of directors USLA meeting in the first four years.

Unfortunately it was not until 2007 when Brevard County experienced 10 drownings back to back and a huge outcry from the public US LA private citizens such as Jerry Storrs attending endless commission meetings and media interviews before Brevard County would take notice. By this time Wyatt as you can imagine under tremendous stress having been on the scene of every person who had drowned needed an outlet and help much like a PTSD victim should require. Wyatt not being one who could sit on the couch and talk about his childhood with a psychiatrist decided he would drag a cross of sorts in the name of each person lost by paddleboarding up the coast of Florida for 10 days. Going from the Miami Beach lifeguard station 345 miles up the coast to the Jacksonville lifeguard station. Wyatt was able to bring awareness about the dangers of rip currents all across America. This journey set a Guinness world record. He received a key to the city from Cocoa Beach, Florida. Wyatt was mentioned in several magazines as the most amazing and interesting person of 2007 for his sacrifice and commitment to beach safety. It has been 10 years since Wyatt accomplished this amazing feat and Wyatt has not stopped there. He is currently working with other lifeguards to form a non-for profit organization called the Life™ Rescue Project. Their mission is to implement life safety devices along all beaches in areas where there are no lifeguards or may never be a lifeguard much like the locations in Brevard County that Wyatt had to pull drowning victims from the ocean. In 2008 Brevard County ocean rescue joining the ranks in Florida with the professional ocean rescue community. Wyatt had finally accomplished all the goals he had set with Jack Parker in early 2000. Wyatt retired and moved on while continuing his work in water safety by committing to a two-year stint with the Cocoa Beach fire department as a firefighter and water safety team member, where he found another way to help save lives along with Christopher Defelice developing a rescue device the rapid diver just before his military career took him overseas to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Wyatt is currently engaged as an active rescuer by joining the Melbourne Beach Volunteer Fire department and Satellite Beach Volunteer fire departments water rescue teams and helping form The Brevard County Sheriffs Office Aviation Rescue Swimmer team.

Wyatt continues with his life-saving legacy to inspire ocean rescuers everywhere. You can see Wyatt has committed his entire life to ocean safety.

For more information on Wyatt Werneth click here.

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