Come feel the wind in your hair!
And can we talk about the incredible Jaws event once more before our attention swings to Pipeline and today’s crowning of both its Master and the Championship Tour Champion? I almost can’t wait but… Jaws. It was just so much fun. The amount of waves ridden, the boldness of the competitors, the daring jet-ski rescues, that iconic yellow helicopter swirling overhead.
But have you ever ridden in a helicopter? I have a small handful of times in Papua New Guinea, backcountry Wyoming and Canada. The way those whirly birds raise straight from the ground, the way they dip, dodge, dive and duck is incredible.
Well, a very lucky young man, a university student from Humboldt State University just north of San Francisco’s Bay Area, got to play Jaws rescue and go for a ride and let’s read the thrilling tale Kris Nagel from a very well-written Coast Guard press release.
The Coast Guard and a California State Park Lifeguard rescued a 20-year-old Humboldt State University student from being swept into a rocky shoreline near Moonstone Beach, Sunday afternoon.
At approximately 1:30 p.m., Coast Guard Sector Humboldt Bay received a 911-dispatch call reporting a surfer being swept toward a rocky shoreline due to a combination of rough seas and the surfer’s exhaustion.
Sector Humboldt Bay dispatched an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew and issued an urgent marine information broadcast via VHF-FM channel 16.
The Dolphin crew arrived on-scene at approximately 2:00 p.m. and found California State Park Lifeguard, Keven Harder, was in the water and had established contact with the distressed surfer.
After it was determined that the swimmer was too fatigued to make it back to shore, Harder signaled the Dolphin crew to deploy their rescue swimmer to hoist the surfer. Once the surfer was hoisted, the Dolphin crew remained on scene until Harder was able to swim back to the beach.
The fatigued surfer, Kris Nagel, was taken to the California Redwood Coast – Humboldt County Airport and transferred to emergency medical services personnel who evaluated and released him.
I wish our World Surf League would also employ the Coast Guard press release writer for its own. I can taste the salt. Feel the wind.
And have you ever been rescued anywhere? Skiing? Snowboarding? Mountain biking, hiking, street luge?
Describe!