It all started with a bodyboard and a garden hose. This invention on Oʻahu's North Shore sparked a revolution in surfer safety half a century ago.
Mark Dombroski began lifeguarding on the famous coast in 1975 and retired in 2016. The Aikau brothers, Eddie and Clyde, recruited Dombroski and mentored him for the first few years of his career, as they and others worked to develop a rescue system using jet skis.
HPR met up with Dombroski at Waimea Bay, where the retired lifeguard still exercises several times a week.
On a particularly chilly January afternoon in the midst of the lifeguards using the PA system to inform beachgoers not to swim in the massive winter waves, Dombroski took a seat at a bench near the lifeguard tower.
With the waves crashing in the background, he reflected on his role in the development of modern-day lifeguarding.
Dombroski chatted about the different evolutions of the rescue board over the years. Through trial and error, what started as a bodyboard with a garden hose eventually turned into the rescue system known today – a jet ski with a specialized sled attached.
“The ski was one of the biggest things, I think, in modernizing lifeguarding around the world, not just in Hawaiʻi. Hawaiʻi was the first place, and now it's used all over the world, and that just proves what an awesome tool it is,” he said.
The first manual for the rescue system was written by Dombroski and other Hawaiʻi lifeguards back in the early ‘90s.
“We all participated in helping write that manual, taking photos of all the techniques, all the grabbing and stuff like that – all the techniques of putting people on the sled and how to do it. And that became a big part of the progression of the ski and safety and the sled and the drivers and the grabbers, and without a lot of that, guys would be just winging it.”
Now, 30 years later, he says the system is a lot more refined. But before they developed this system, lifeguarding was “old manual labor,” he said.
“It's run down the beach, no jet ski to help you out when you're out in the middle of the ocean with your patient, it's swim back to shore, or call … the HFD helicopter with a basket on it or a surfboard. There were no radios. There was no backup,” he said. “It was you and your partners, that was it.”
Dombroski would hang out at Waimea Bay as a keiki, where he ended up meeting the Aikau brothers, who were lifeguards at the time.
“Eddie told me that they were having tryouts for lifeguards,” he said. “I didn't have a path set yet in my life.”
“I worked with Eddie for like, three years, because the Hōkūleʻa took off in ‘78, and I started in ‘75. So that's where I was able to learn quite a bit in a short period of time. And actually coming to work was, at that time, like almost a privilege, to be able to come here and work.”
Dombroski had to build a lot of trust in the partners he worked with, and he shared that these working relationships, including with the Aikau brothers, turned into deep friendships.
“I worked with some guys that were big-time guys. You know what I mean, at my age, I didn't realize it as much until later,” he said. “And I think personally, for me, it was more like the bonding thing. And I felt like they were my big brothers. They trusted me because they were my teachers too, right? You know what I mean, if I didn't learn, right? I could be like an anchor to them.”
“It was never like an ego thing, it was more like just a friendship and being taught by people that cared about their job and cared about the people they work with and cared about the public. And it all comes together. As far as trust goes, I bonded with these guys, and I was able to pick things up quicker because they were willing to help me learn these things.”
When the Aikau brothers got into lifeguarding, Dombroski said there were fewer teachers. The North Shore didn’t get a lifeguard until the late ‘60s, which is when Eddie started.
“I feel like those guys were a big foundation out here, as far as lifeguarding goes, and they had a lot of respect already from a lot of their peers. So being able to learn from those guys, I got lucky, basically, to be able to come out here and learn from the best. It was like a privilege for me, and I didn't know that.”
He didn’t realize that he was learning from such profound watermen until he was 26 years old, when his career took off, and Eddie was gone.
“It really, I think, made a difference in how I thought about life, even with my own family, you know, try and pace myself and do the right things. And, even this job, I never thought I'd work this job as long as I did. But the time just flew by, and here I am now. It's just one of those things that life takes you on a crazy journey sometimes.”
This story aired on The Conversation on Feb. 3, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Tori DeJournett adapted this story for the web.
