We had a rescue this year that was right on the city line between Los Angeles and Long Beach.  The incident that happened was..it was a family.  There were six members of a family. 

            The call came out over the radio that there was a boat on the rocks.  So the downtown guys started to go in rescue boat 2.  We started to go from Alamitos Bay, which is a lot longer trip.  We didn’t exactly know where they were.  But when it started to unfold over the radio we knew that some pretty good trouble was going on.

            What had happened was that there was a little bit of a swell rolling on the outside.  The way the breakwall is, when the swells some from the Northwest, they kind of roll down the breakwater.  What had happened was that they were in fishing close to the breakwater and they just got too close. The boat, was a 17 foot aluminum fishing boat or something like that.  They went up on the breakwater, the wave went down, and they were all up there.  There was a guy that was in another boat that offered to throw them a line to help them out.  The boat stuck on the breakwater chose not to take the line, but to wait for the next wave, start the motor, and get off of the breakwater. 

            The next wave came buy and lifted everybody up.  When the boat came back down, it hit stern (back end) first and pitched everybody out of the boat.  Some of them had injuries after that. 

            I don’t remember if everyone had a lifejacket on.  There may have been a couple of the kids. 

            There were a few boats that were there.  The Baywatch boat came up, Los Angeles City Fire was there, we arrived fairly quickly.  The citizen’s boat that was there before had gotten the kids out of the water and one of the little girls was in bad shape, so they were working on her.  When our boat came up, they were calling for divers to go in and look.  Their boat was upside down now.  They knew that there were more members that were missing.  They were looking for one guy in particular.  One family member was having CPR.  The other little girl was still being worked on.  They said they were looking for one more person.

            So as we came up my deckhand said, “Hey, there’s somebody right there.” As the swell came through, he disappeared.  So I went into the rocks really close, dropped him off, and as the swell changed, the person popped up again.  One of the guys from our other rescue boat had gone over also and was with the person.  As the swell came through, it pulled them all under water. 

            As the swell left, and they all popped up again, being on the boat, from a different perspective, I was able to see into the water, and see that he had something tied around his leg.  So I called to one of my guys to take my knife and cut the line that was holding them back.  By now a couple of other guys from Los Angeles City Fire had jumped into the water to help.  The victim in the water ended up being about 300 pounds.  He was very difficult to get out of the water.

            After they were able to cut the line, that happed to be around both of his legs, they realized it was the anchor line.  It had gotten caught around his legs as he was pitched out.

            Well, the little girl, who did have a lifejacket on, and was being worked on by the other rescue workers, was his daughter.  What had happed was that he was holding onto her because she could float during the bottom of the swell, but when the top of the swell came, he was pulling her under water with her lifejacket.  So here the dad was trying to stay alive by holding onto his daughter. 

            What finally happened, was that he had gone under water enough, that he finally let go of the little girl, and he drowned.  That’s when the other people came and were able to rescue the little girl and work on her.

            We put that all together afterward.

            What had happened was, when we came up, he was still caught in the anchor line that was stuck under the rocks.  So when the swell came rolling down the breakwall, it just sucked him under water.  After they swell went by, he was able to come up, but he was not able to break loose. 

            By the time we had gotten to him he was unconscious.  It had taken us about 10 to 12 minutes to get from our station to the scene.  That is a fast response time to actually be on scene.  But there were other people on the water and others that were being worked on.  So the victim was not someone who was seen initially while everything else was going on. 

            We got him up onto the swim step.  Then we got him into the boat.  We started doing CPR, then we intibated him.  We brought him into our landing, which was the closest one and our paramedics met us there.  They started working on him and we transferred him to them while they kept working on him on the way to the hospital. 

            On this call, I don’t think I could have done anything better.  It couldn’t have gone any better with regards to our efforts.  We did the absolute best that we possibly could.  We had cooperation.  We had paramedics and skillful boat drivers.  He had the best chance of living because we did everything right.  We just didn’t get the result we wanted.