Key Club employees rescue two teens caught in riptide

Hailey Childress, 12, of Seattle, and her 15-year-old cousin, Reid Elkins, were having fun on their boogie-boards only an hour before they were swept off in the riptide Friday, April 6.

The pair, who was visiting their grandparents, Howard and Janice Tibbals, residents at L’Ambiance, were swimming in the Gulf of Mexico near the Longboat Key Club and Resort. Approximately 5-foot waves were crashing over their heads, and the current was preventing them from swimming back in to shore.

Hailey is a competitive swimmer and has set records in her hometown, and Reid used to swim competitively as well; but the riptide swept them further out.

“We tried to swim but stayed in the same place and ended up even further out,” Hailey says. She was panicked and screaming for help. At one point, they ditched their only flotation devices, their boogie boards, which they felt were holding them back.

Two Longboat Key Club pool and beach attendants, Robert Peltier and Logan Brisson, packed two kayaks with life jackets, but their safety manager didn’t want them going out in the rough water. They called 911, instead.

“We didn’t know how bad of trouble they were in, but then we saw the (boogie) boards float off,” says Peltier.
All Key Club employees are required to take CPR training but are not required to make rescues. A few years ago, there was a near drowning and rescue that sparked the idea of a flag system to warn beach-goers of water conditions. A red flag was waiving when Hailey and Reid were in the water.

The near-drowning also prompted the Key Club to send employees to a water-safety training, said Rick Benninghove, director of resort operations. Both Brisson and Peltier underwent water-safety training.

“You can’t just sit there and watch something happen,” says Brisson.

The two employees decided to take the risk and rescued the duo in the water. Once the victims were in life jackets and in the kayaks, it was still a struggle. Each kayak flipped three to four times.

Peltier, with Reid in tow, decided his best bet was to float in to Lido Beach and not fight the strong current. A fishing boat, flagged down by Key Club staff, picked them up.

Brisson had a headstart with Hailey and decided to forge toward the Key Club.

After 20 minutes of fighting the waves and current, the two teens and Key Club employees made it back to the beach safely.

This, however, hasn’t been the first time either Key Club employee has had to make a rescue. Three years ago, a 50-year-old man swimming in the Gulf of Mexico near the Longboat Key Club almost drowned.

“It happens a handful of times every year,” says Brisson.

“We’re looking into additional options for how to help in this kind of situation,” says Benninghove.