SouthFlorida.com | City Link Magazine

Don't take it personally if Jo Wagenhals looks over your shoulder while talking to you; she's only doing her job. Perched on a lifeguard tower at Delray Beach's Atlantic Dunes Park, her eyes constantly scan the ocean and beachfront for trouble. Treating people who are suffering jellyfish stings, heart attacks and epileptic seizures can all be a part of her day.

Last month, sharks were her main disturbance, as a mass migration prompted officials to ban swimming off Delray Beach for several days. When NBC's Today Show reported on the migration, city officials naturally asked Wagenhals to field the interview. After all, who better to represent the city's Ocean Rescue Division than the newly named Florida Lifeguard of the Year?

"It was crazy," Wagenhals, 32, says of the sharks. "I've never seen anything like it. When they came in the shallows [in the beginning of March], their fins stuck out. But [later in the month], when it was just hundreds and hundreds of them, it looked like this elongated blur because they were moving so fast. There was one shark for every 50 square feet, and it was all day long."

This kind of media attention was a nice break for Wagenhals, because usually when she talks to reporters, it means a beachgoer has nearly -- or actually -- lost his life. Yet during her six-year career, she has saved the lives of a whopping 12 people. "Probably seven who were really in dire situations," she notes.

Her last emergency was a "pull," ocean-rescue lingo for retrieving a dead body from the ocean. "It was completely preventable," she recalls. "The guy drowned in a part of unguarded beach. He was probably only 500 yards from a tower. If he had just walked a little farther down the beach, he would have been in front of a lifeguard."

But working in a state that boasts so much oceanfront land, Wagenhals didn't get to be Florida's top lifeguard on rescues alone. She is also a nationally ranked lifeguard-athlete. She tears up her competitors in racing surf skis and rowing.

"A surf ski is the quickest way to get to someone," she explains. "If you ever watched Magnum, P.I., on the opening shot, he is on a surf ski. It's like a kayak but it's only as wide as your hips and 19 feet long with foot pedals to work the rudder."

Wagenhals also spends a considerable amount of time teaching the public about lifeguarding and how to stay safe at the beach. "It's cool and an adrenaline rush to [save] somebody," she says, "but you don't want our patrons to go through that. It can be very traumatizing for them. That's why I enjoy the PR work. Ultimately, you don't want to have to get wet, because you don't want that person to ever have to get to that point."

-- Jim Di Paola