Much like a young Bruce Wayne, Southern Regional Director of the National Weather Service Bill Proenza encountered the enemy he would devote much of his life to thwarting during his childhood.

Whereas the future Batman swore an oath that criminals would grow to fear his name, Proenza's foe is a bit more esoteric: His childhood nemeses were rip currents -- those deadly channels of water that yank innocent swimmers from shallow beach waters near the shore into the deep ocean.

"You never think about when these things happen to you as a child how it'll impact your future," Proenza says of the day he was narrowly rescued from a powerful current at age 8.

But in 1988, as an adult, he partnered with Jim Lushines, a Florida meteorologist who helped initiate a rip current–forecasting program. The summer before the program began was the deadliest on record in southeast Florida, but the number of fatalities quickly fell by more than half, from 27 in 1988 to 11 in 1989.

Asylum tracked Proenza down to get the story directly from the rip current's fiercest opponent. In the process, we learned how you can protect yourself and your loved ones from this most dangerous of all ocean currents this summer.

Bill Proenza: Year One
As a youngster, swimming with his family in Atlantic City, N.J., he would hear the warnings his mother issued: "Be careful of the undertow! Stay shallow!"

But on that fateful summer day, when he was 8, he failed to heed those words. "I was caught by one," he explains. "The wave action was particularly active that day, and it pulled me in."

Luckily, he was saved by his father.

Two years later, however, in south Florida, the destructive force of nature found him once again -- and this time, his dad was nowhere to be seen.

"It took me out to sea so quickly, I couldn't touch the bottom anymore," Proenza recalls. "I tried swimming back to shore, but it was hopeless -- it was like being on a treadmill. I hollered for help, and then a man, a stranger, swam up and carried me back to shore."

At this point, at 10 years-old, Proenza had cheated the ocean's greatest threat to humans -- "a lot more dangerous than sharks," he declares -- for a second time. He was through taking chances. He signed up for the Red Cross' advanced swimming lessons, so the next time the rip currents struck, he would be prepared for them.

He got his chance as a 13-year-old: "I heard a gentleman screaming that he had been pushed out by the water. It was a call to action. I swam over and told him to trust me," Proenza recounts. "He stopped flailing and I got up behind him. I grabbed him from the back and started swimming, got him to a place where we could stand."

Proenza didn't know it yet, but with this victory against the currents, he had found his future career. The initiative he partnered on in 1988, which began as a pilot program, quickly expanded nationally, and today, the National Weather Service monitors rip currents on the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts, as well as the Great Lakes.

How to Survive a Rip Current (the Bill Proenza Way):
Should you find yourself caught in a current this summer, there's more to surviving than merely staying calm -- although Proenza stresses that it's a good start.

1. Stop struggling. "Swimming straight back is tiring, even for a strong swimmer," he explains. And you won't be able to do it because of the treadmill effect he spoke of earlier. Flailing around in an attempt to get back to shore isn't going to help either.

2. Move parallel to the shore. "You're fighting Mother Nature," he says, and you won't win if you try to confront the rip current head on. Instead, Proenza explains, "You need to get out of the flow. Move laterally, and you can get to a place where the current isn't as strong without exhausting yourself."

Once you've escaped the current, don't just swim straight ahead toward the shore -- move at an angle, so you're both heading back to the beach and keeping the current behind you at all times.

3. Don't wear yourself out. If the current is too strong, don't just push yourself harder to try to get away from it -- instead, if all else fails, tread water to stay afloat and wait for the current to die down.

And if all of this is still too scary for you, you can always skip the beach and just fill up the tub and splash around in there.