Tim Burnham, left, of Newport Beach and co-director; Skeeter Leeper, center, a Newport Beach lifeguard; and Jack Murgatroyd of Los Angeles and co-director, stand next to the statue of Ben Carlson at the base of the Newport Beach Pier in Newport Beach on Thursday, April 5, 2018. The three are in the process of making a movie to tell the story of Carlson, the first lifeguard in the US to lose his life during the line of duty. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)
By LAYLAN CONNELLY | [email protected] | Orange County Register
Skeeter Leeper looks out toward the shores of Newport Beach, where a batch of new lifeguards this summer will watch over the hundreds of thousands of people that flock to the coast as the weather warms.
Some of the younger guards gearing up for their first year with the lifeguard department weren’t even teenagers when Ben Carlson died during a rescue in big surf four years ago this summer.
The crop of rookie guards will never know, or get to train under, Carlson, who was memorialized with a saluting statue just a short distance from where lifeguards frantically scoured the sea for his body after he disappeared in the rough waters on July 6, 2014.
And that’s why Carlson’s story – how he and other lifeguards are part of the water they protect and love so much – needs to be told, said a pair of filmmakers who will continue filming this summer on a documentary about the lifeguard and his peers.