The viral video of an ocean rescue
You may already have seen this; it’s really quite impressive:
And here’s the father of the 10-year-old who was saved:
When you think about it, the difference between 10 years old and 16 years old isn’t really so great – not in years, anyway. But it can make all the difference in the world.
The lifeguard was very very determined:
A 16-year-old rookie lifeguard hailed by President Trump after a dramatic California beach rescue says he made one decision as towering waves crashed around him: “I wasn’t going to let go of that kid.”
“He was going to drown, and I wasn’t going to let that happen,” Ryder Williams later told his father, retired firefighter Shane Williams, after rescuing 10-year-old Nathaniel Rai from violent surf at Seabright State Beach in Santa Cruz on Saturday. …
“I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to return the child to his family safely,” Williams said. “This is my job and I love what I do.”
This is my job and I love what I do. As I said, impressive.
What a humble young man, exhibiting virtue and grace beyond his years. How proud his parents must be.
I caught this on my Facebook feed yesterday. People getting swept off of the shores by “sneaker waves” in my area and Santa Cruz happens a lot.
Santa Cruz has more sandy beaches, and we have some in the Monterey and south area, but there is much more of our shoreline covered with big, jagged rocks. This means that once a person is swept off, they run a strong probability of being knocked unconscious.
California State Parks lifeguard candidates take an intensive swimming and running test (which only about a third of candidates pass) just to be considered. If accepted, they get 80 hours of training in rescue and first-aid techniques, then have additional on-the-job training, rescue practices, and regular conditioning workouts. It’s a hard job that’s taken very seriously.
When you think about it, the difference between 10 years old and 16 years old isn’t really so great – not in years, anyway. But it can make all the difference in the world.
When you consider physical size, the difference is rather great. At age 16, I was about a foot taller than I was at age 10. (all I remember is my recorded height at end of 6th grade, and my final height, around age 16.) And about twice as much in weight at age 16 compared to age 10. I imagine those differences are around the average.
Which reminds me of taking swimming lessons at age 8. During the time I was taking swimming lessons, I went to a pond with family friends. When I overestimated my swimming ability, a teenager rescued me. Fortunately, a placid pond had no wicked tides to overcome.
Tommy Jay–we will be moving to our home in Carmel at the end of the year. Our time at the beach will take on a different dimension. One week ago our son and a couple of our grands came down for one last hurrah at our favorite public beach in Laguna. We had a 5-star day. The family was in the water 10-3:30. (Angel game that evening). Starting the next day, swimming would have been hazardous. Weather and all, we could not have asked for better.
Sharon: Remembering from my pre-teen years, when I spent summers with my grandmother in Carmel, I’m gonna guess you won’t spend long periods of time in that water. Brutally cold.
BTW, I drove through Carmel about 20 years ago with my youngest daughter visiting colleges, and we drove by my grandmother’s just so I could show it to my daughter. Turns out some city organization had bought the house and turned it into a public museum. So we parked and walked through it. Dolores & 8th St, if you’d like to look it up. The Carmel Foundation, maybe? My grandmother had that house built in about 1952. It was something to walk through it almost 50 years later. Smaller than I remembered!
Brutally cold. — F
Ha! No kidding. Long ago, we were having a nice summer and in the middle of a La Niña, which supposed increased the water temp. somewhat. So my wife and I went swimming off the ocean side of the peninsula. Just bathing suits. Even then, it was brutally cold.
Before that, I used to board sail in the bay. I gave up on the wetsuit and went with a dry suit.
F-Yes, walks along the beach–not swimming! My daughter is a Realtor there. She will be familiar with the Foundation. They just recently assigned house numbers to the homes there, as you know, formerly known by the name the Owners chose.
the difference is rather great
Yes, indeed. I was a junior lifesaver at age 11, for senior lifesaver you needed to be 16. I could lug around older children in controlled conditions, dealing with a full grown adult in the wild would have been well beyond my size and strength.
Not all heroes wear capes – this one wears board shorts.
He never let go! That is awesome. May he be blessed with a long, happy, and fulfilling life.
You might ask what was the boy doing out in the surf with no family around? There was a local television (ktvu) news report that said it was due to an estranged divorced couple situation. According to the report
“Family Situation: The father reported that the children live with him in Texas, but his estranged wife had taken Nathaniel and his 8-year-old sister to California for a vacation. “
It is horrifying, but is it possible that the ex-wife was trying to get one of the children killed for revenge on her ex-husband?
Here is the news report
https://www.ktvu.com/news/santa-cruz-lifeguard-recalls-heroic-rescue-new-statement
Sumit Rai, the father of Nathaniel, the boy who was rescued by a Santa Cruz lifeguard over the weekend, says he is grateful his son is alive. He thanked the lifeguards and good Samaritans for coming to his son’s aid. He said he and his wife are separated, going through a divorce and that Nathaniel and his younger sister live with him in Dallas, Texas.
He said his wife took the kids on vacation in California. “I didn’t know about the incident until later on Saturday,” Rai said. “My son shared with me he had drowned and was unconscious and this had occurred.” He said he learned more details from his 8-year-old daughter.
I lived in San Francisco for 35 years. There are dangerous surf signs all over the beach. People are regularly caught by sneaker waves and rip tides. Some die.
I tried to rehabilitate myself as a surfer at SF’s Ocean Beach. I had learned to surf in Florida. Ocean Beach was an entirely different beach break. Too cold, too treacherous plus I had a very demanding job. I didn’t stick with it.
_________________________________
–“Hidden dangers of Ocean Beach: Here’s why it’s not a safe place to swim or learn how to surf”
https://www.parksconservancy.org/park-e-ventures-article/hidden-dangers-ocean-beach
I was a lifeguard for year or two in high school, but only at a pool. I do remember the training. A key aspect of training is self-defense: A panicked swimmer can overcome a lifeguard with the result that both of them drown. It happens all too often. So we learned how to protect ourselves as well as how to save someone else.
In fact I remembered this a few years ago when I was on a boat in a Vermont lake, and I saw a rather large older gentleman capsize his kayak. I was able to keep my distance (knowing he could panic and possibly overwhelm me) by telling him to hold on to one end of the kayak, while I held onto the other and swam the kayak back to shore. I found out later chatting with him that he had recently had triple-bypass surgery, and also was pretty wealthy and an investor in the hotel where this happened. He bought me a drink at the hotel bar for my efforts.
Man’s foolishness, his tendency to overestimate adverserial events and occasions and surmount them, is one of mankind’s great attributes and blessings. Our Heavenly Father saves us from our foolishness. I have been near death many times in my decades, and have always weaseled out of those tightspots, not by my own abilities or grace but but a Higher Power.
How else can one explain how, at age twelve I was trapped under an unconscious horse in a landslide we had initiated by going up a slippery slope, the horse unconscious with its legs uphill, my body trapped downhill from the horse, my left leg trapped under the saddle. Something motivated me to twist into a runner’s crouch (my leg still trapped), my body downslope below the 1200 pound horse. The horse awoke, lifted its body by reflex uphill, trying to get its legs under its body, just enough so it freed my leg and I shot downslope, the horse rolling over and over downslope right behind me. Had I not been in that crouch, coming out of the blocks, so to speak, I would have been crushed.
My actions and survival were not of my own doing. I had Guidance.
“When you think about it, the difference between 10 years old and 16 years old isn’t really so great – not in years, anyway. But it can make all the difference in the world.”
Not exactly a comparable case, but that statement reminded me of the situations were the 20+ year old professional womens soccor teams will train by engaging with 15 or 16 year old boys high school teams.
Here the difference is in testosterone, but an age vs. capability gap none the less.
Many years back one of my lifeguard friends mentioned that he was going out to dinner with a couple that took him out annually. He had saved the husband’s life – the winter waves here are brutal. I commented that there must be a lot of people wanting to treat him to dinner, since he had been lifeguarding on the North Shore of Oahu for over a decade. Surprisingly, he said he didn’t get thanked all that often as people who have just been rescued from near death are in such physical and emotional shock that they never even learn his name. And their friends/partners are hysterical.
Nice that this young man got the credit he deserves.
I lived in Santa Cruz in the late 70’s, the ocean water temperature in the Summer is very cold. Jump in jump out cold.
That lifeguard did a tremendous job under severe duress.
I grew up in Connecticut on Long Island Sound. One of the popular state beaches is Hammonasset and I lived there summers (it was a short bike ride from my home). Waves top out usually at 4-6′ and are VERY predictable. I was a very strong swimmer. I went cross country at maybe 11 with a YMCA group. We stopped on the California shoreline somewhere between San Francisco and LA (closer to LA I think). The water there was INCREDIBLY cold, and even the wash from the waves was 3-5′ deep in spots. It would literally suck the sand out from under your feet. Anyone that had dealt with waves on the east coast (even the few that had met REAL Atlantic waves at Martha’s Vineyard or similar) saw those waves and decided NOT to go deeper than about knee deep, that water was terrifying. That is one brave 16 year old.
@Molly Brown: “Surprisingly, he said he didn’t get thanked all that often as people who have just been rescued from near death are in such physical and emotional shock that they never even learn his name. ”
Still, you would think at least sometime afterwards they could and would make an effort to learn who the person(s) involved in saving them were. Even if the follow up effort was weeks later, I am sure the thanks directed at the saver(s) would be well deserved and appreciated.
And even if the individual(s) involved were not allowed to accept gifts or gratuities afterwards, there should be a fund for the overall life guard dept. that could accept contributions.
Great praise for the very brave and determined life-guard, and well-deserved.
Just a passing thought, considering how young he appears to us: Alexander the Great was a general at age 16 and King of Macedon at 20.
Different times.
Our family story is not nearly so dramatic.
On a sight-seeing trip with my mother and siblings, most of us wanted to go out somewhere after an already busy day, and she and the kids (our three youngest) were more inclined to stay at the motel.
The boys of course wanted to go swimming, but she expressed some concern that there was no lifeguard at the pool.
Note: All of our kids were Boy Scouts, and had already done most of the rank requirements and Merit Badges.
The oldest of the three, about 14, just smiled and said, “Grandma, I am the lifeguard.”