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Cancun adds lifeguards and Lucas system to holiday beach safety

Cancun, Q.R. — Nearly 40 lifeguards will be distributed between Cancun beaches for the busy Easter holidays. Antonio Riveroll, the Director of Cancun Civil Protection who hires the lifeguards, says nearly 40 will monitor city beaches.

Riveroll says 27 of their Civil Protection lifeguards plus another 10 from the Cancun Fire Department will be deployed on public beaches. This year, he says, Civil Protection has the use of two new life saving devices.

Lucas, a chest compression system, is on hand to provide specialized care in emergency cases on the beaches.

Riveroll says the purchase of two Lucas devices are part of the equipment they recently received to improve their lifesaving interventions.

“The Lucas compression system is used to provide cardiovascular or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, what CPR does. So what we do is connect the patient to Lucas, which does it mechanically,” he explained.

“Let us remember that one of the tasks of the lifeguards is to get off the tower, run 100 meters, 50 meters, whatever they have to run, swim in the sea, remove the drowning person and then give CPR.

“This means it can get complicated because it is tiring for anyone. Imagine for a lifeguard who has been working for six or seven hours and in this sense, what this mechanical system is going to do are those compressions until the ambulance arrives,” he said.

Riveroll said that prior to the Easter holidays, the city of Cancun received new equipment to reinforce their efforts. The new equipment includes three new trucks, two ATVs, radios and two Lucas compression devices.

He said that this will be the first holiday season in which they will use the new Lucas system. The city has two devices which will be at Cancun’s two busiest beaches which include Playa Marlín and Playa Delfines.