Janet Fash, the woman who worked her way up at Rockaway Beach to become New York City’s first female chief lifeguard, is using a new memoir to send a blunt message as summer starts: if there is no lifeguard, do not go in. In Lifeguard: A Love Story, Fash looks back on roughly 40 years on the sand and argues that uneven staffing and what she describes as a flawed reading of the rules have created risky gaps along the shoreline. Her warnings land as elected officials and lifeguards are still reckoning with last year’s deadly beach season.
Memoir Pulls Back The Curtain On Rockaway
Fash’s memoir, published June 23, traces her start at Rockaway in 1979 and her rise to chief lifeguard, offering both a personal story and an insider’s critique of how the lifeguarding corps has been run. According to Simon & Schuster, the book frames Rockaway as “the most dangerous post in the city” and lays out accounts of hazing, alleged union corruption and chronic understaffing.
She Faults How The City Interprets Staffing Rules
Fash has told reporters the city has done a “poor job” interpreting a local law that governs how lifeguards are deployed and says officials sometimes “double or triple up” guards in one popular section while leaving other swim areas closed. She argues that this approach leaves long stretches unprotected and nudges people into the water where no one is watching. As she told the New York Post, those staffing decisions can create large blank spots in coverage even though the underlying standard is supposed to keep things even.
That standard comes from state rules that limit how much shoreline a single lifeguard may be assigned. According to 10 NYCRR §7-2.11, as posted by the Legal Information Institute, each lifeguard may supervise no more than 50 yards of shoreline at a bathing beach, a cap meant to prevent overextended guards.
Why Lifeguard Numbers Matter Now
Last summer’s losses made the stakes painfully clear. Two teenage sisters drowned off Coney Island on July 5, 2024, and other drownings at city beaches pushed water safety onto the policy front burner. Those incidents were widely reported and came up in a City Council hearing on parks and recreation that examined lifeguard staffing and swim education as part of a broader plan to cut drownings. As reported by ABC News, local coverage and council testimony highlighted how quickly surf conditions can turn deadly when people swim outside designated, guarded areas. The hearing itself is archived in the council’s meeting records at the City Council.
City Response And The Backstory
Parks officials say recruitment has improved and that the department hired roughly 930 lifeguards for last season while testing out extended on-duty hours during heat advisories to cut down on after-hours risk. Fash, who has long criticized the former union control over testing and hiring, points to the 2025 retirement of veteran union leader Peter Stein as a turning point that sits in the background of her book and public comments. The retirement and the broader fight over staffing and oversight were detailed by NY1, which described the union’s outsized influence and the city’s push for new recruitment strategies.
Fash’s Simple Message For Swimmers
Fash’s guidance for beachgoers is not complicated: swim only where a lifeguard is on duty, obey the posted flags and stay out of the water after towers shut down for the day. In her memoir and interviews, she argues that a fair, consistent application of the 50-yard rule and a more even spread of guards would keep more shoreline open without sacrificing safety. For more of her first-hand accounts from Rockaway and her take on how the system has worked, see Lifeguard: A Love Story from Simon & Schuster.
