Wave sweeps man, child off California coast

Sacramento Bee ^ | 01/03/04 | Associated Press

[Holly_P]

EUREKA, Calif. (AP) - An 8-year-old boy was swept out to sea by a large wave, and his uncle died after plunging into the water to save him. The boy's family was returning to Washington state Friday after visiting relatives in California for the holidays and stopped along the coast for lunch. Several children went to the water's edge to play.

[Holly_P]

Rock stars aren't heroes. This boys uncle is a hero.

[omega_c]

thats so sad...

[cajungirl]

This makes me cry,,those poor people.

[al baby]

I was born and raised on the ocean and this i know you have to have a healthy respect for it im sure this was just a accident but one must be so carefull out there god bless them all

[Holly_P]

The only ocean I have been in is the Atlantic. I can swim but when I am more than knee deep I get a panic feeling when the waves go back out. It feels as if I will be sucked out into the ocean.

[Clara Lou]

This is just too sad. Bad things happen. =(

[Cicero]

Awful. It almost happened to me on a beach in Oregon about 30 years ago. I had a baby in a backpack and a dachshund on a leash, with a slightly older child holding on to one hand. I was walking along the top of the beach next to a huge piece of driftwood which consisted of a huge tree trunk, I think a Douglas fir.

The tide was low, way down the beach almost out of sight. Suddenly a rogue wave appeared out of nowhere. I jumped up and it lifted the whole tree trunk under my feet straight up in the air. I had picked up the second child in one arm and yanked the dachshund by his leash and found myself swinging him around my head to keep him from going into the water, because I couldn't let go of my child.

The wave receded after about half a minute, and the tree fortunately dropped back down instead of being swept away.
Definitely scary.

[cubreporter]

Yipes...that gave me the chills. Glad to know you were not injured or suffered any loss of your life or that of your children. Gotta love those doxies...they are tuff!

[dandelion]

God be with them, and their families. No greater love...

[drhogan]

i love the ocean but i have never heard of a rogue wave before. how often do they hit? do you know if they are only in the pacific or if they are in the atlantic also? do you know what causes them? are specific beaches with certain types of terrain more likely to have them?
my daughter will soon be going to college in CA, so i am interested to learn about these things.
thanks.

[concentric circles]

The Eureka Reporter/Glenn Franco Simmons

North Coast beaches are hazardous this time of year, and should always be approached with caution. Today’s death of a 38-year-old man and the presumed death of a boy at Freshwater Spit illustrates the risk people take along some North Coast beaches. Two of many dangerous spots, the North Spit and North Jetty (above) are also hazardous.

[Cicero]

He was a long-haired dachshund, the best kind!

[Cicero]

I don't really know how common it is. I'd say they are very rare, but they do seem to happen once in a while. You could do some investigating, but I'd say the most important thing is to know how to swim, just in case.

In my instance, I was taken by surprise and had two small children to deal with. (I loved the dog, but if it was him or my children, he would have had to take second place.) In this recent tragedy, you have another child who probably couldn't swim and an uncle who may have swum out too far looking for him.

[Ditter]

I had an encounter with a rogue wave in Hawaii a few years ago but I didn't know it had a name. I was standing about 12 feet from the waters edge. It wasn't particularly rough but a wave just sort of *jumped up* & it was almost to my waist before I could react. If had been closer to the waters edge I would have been a goner.

[tubebender]

This happened about 40 miles north of me and it has happened all to frequently on our winter beaches. I think it was last year when a child was sucked out into the breakers and three relatives drowned trying to save him. Some are never recovered and that adds to the devastation of loved ones. My heart breaks over every one of these.

[tubebender]

Here is the story on Saturday


Rogue wave claims one at Freshwater Spit; child also missing
By James Tressler The Times-Standard

Saturday, January 03, 2004 -

FRESHWATER SPIT -- A Washington family's return trip home from a holiday visit turned tragic Friday afternoon when two family members, including an 8-year-old boy, were swept by a rogue wave into the ocean off Freshwater Spit.

The boy was still missing Friday evening. The body of a 38-year-old uncle who tried to save the boy had been recovered by search-and-rescue crews. The names of the man and boy were not released as of press time.

Sheriff's Department officials said two related families were traveling along U.S. Highway 101 back to their homes in Washington state Friday after visiting family in Southern California over the holidays. The families stopped at Freshwater Spit for lunch. Several children, including the 8-year-old, went down to the water's edge to play in the surf.

Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Brenda Gainey said a large wave knocked the children down, taking the 8-year-old out to sea. The child's mother dashed into the water and was able to retrieve the child, but then another large wave crashed into them, taking the child back out to sea.

The child's uncle, the 38-year-old man, was then summoned to help. He plunged into the frigid waters but soon disappeared.

Sheriff's Department officials say the incident occurred shortly after noon. The man's body was recovered by U.S. Coast Guard and Sheriff's Department search and rescue teams just before 1 p.m. CPR and rescue breathing were attempted, but to no avail.

As of late Friday afternoon, search-and-rescue crews were still looking for the young boy, with the search expected to go on until nightfall. The Coast Guard searched outside the surf zone in a 47-foot boat, while sheriff's personnel scoured the beach on ATV's. But by 4 p.m. the search-and-rescue helicopter was sweeping an increasingly wide area of ocean, a distressing sign that hopes of finding the boy were getting slim.

"It's tragic, heartbreaking," Gainey said. "This one really shakes me up."

Most area residents are taught to watch out for so-called "rogue waves," large wintertime waves that can catch beachgoers unawares. But residents in Orick, just a few miles up the road from the spit, said they've seen a lot of out-of-town traffic along Highway 101 in recent days, most likely because of the recent snow-caused closures of Interstate 5. Such people probably aren't aware of the dangers posed by rogue waves this time of year.

"Even on a sunny day (rogue waves) can sneak up on you," said Kale Bowling-Schaff, a park ranger with Redwood National Park. "It's hard to emphasize enough to stay back a good distance and never turn your back on the waves."

[drhogan]

thanks for your reply. i did a lot of research last night on the internet about rogue waves--they are really incredible. fortunately my daughter is a good swimmer (former life guard and swim team member). they seem to happen more in certain areas (espec vancouver island) because of currents. i live on long island (ny) and i have never heard of them happening here.
i'll ask my wife about them also, since she is from Oregon. i think my mother encountered some in the atlantic on the QE2 a number of years ago (the ship had some real trouble), but they did not use the term "rogue wave" in that instance.
i'm glad that you, your kids, and your dog were able to survive it--it sounds very scary.
thanks again,
doug

[Cicero]

If you sit on the beach and watch the waves come in, you'll see that the old saying that every seventh wave is bigger is roughly correct. You'll also see that sometimes two waves will converge at an angle and heap up higher, sometimes almost to double size. That might happen once in several hundred waves. A real rogue wave probably happens one in a million waves (at a rough guess).

I have spent a LOT of time in boats, and I've seen some pretty big waves over the years, but that one out in Oregon was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. Even at that, probably most people would never see one.

[tet68]

The pacific is COLD too.
No gulf stream.