ORANGE BEACH, Ala. – To get ready for the summer season all of the crews from Orange Beach Fire and Rescue had to jump in the refreshing Gulf and ride around on personal watercraft.

But this also involved hard work.

“This is annual refresher training on responses to swimmers in distress and water rescue calls,” Battalion Chief and Training Officer Kevin Lanford said. “Everybody did good, it’s always fun, but everybody takes it serious and they get out there and get practice on things we don’t get to do very often.

“It’s one of those low-frequency, high-risk type calls.”

Orange Beach has a surf patrol crew manned by trained lifeguards and this year is adding lifeguard stands as well. The fire crews are there if the crews are overwhelmed.

“The main reason we’re doing it now is we’re backup for the surf patrol,” Lanford said. “They are our primary responders in those emergencies and we’re there to back them up if we get multiple victims, if we get multiple calls going on.

“We just want to make sure our people are capable and understand their limitations and their abilities to respond to those situations. All the crew members go through it.”

The week before Memorial Day crews hit the beach before the big crowds came.

“We practice rescues with the personal water craft, the wave runners,” Lanford said. “We practice rescues from shore-based launches with rescue boards and swimming out to a rescue.”