"Help! I don't want to die!"

These are the words I heard in the distance after catching my 1st wave in two weeks coming off my shoulder injury yesterday. I said to myself, this can't be. Anytime I have heard someone yelling and screaming in the water is when they (usually kids) were playing around and acting like they are drowning.

I started looking around to see who was yelling "Help! Please Help me! I don't want to die!" With each word it's starting to sound more and more serious, and I'm not so sure it's a joke now. I spot a guy about 50-75 yards from shore, about 100 yards away from me. I noticed his head bobbing up and down and started to paddle toward him. As I got close I saw the fear in his eyes but he was moving his arms and staying afloat and didn't LOOK to be in too much trouble, but you could hear it in his voice.

Me: "Do you need help getting back to shore?"
Him: "I can't swim!"
Me: "Are you serious? You're in the ocean with 4-6ft waves, and you can't swim?
Him: "This is my first time in the ocean, I just moved here from Tennessee".
Me: "You picked the wrong day for it to be your 1st day in the ocean dude, but don't worry, you're going to be fine."
Him: "Please help me, I'm getting sucked out!"
Me: "You're going to be fine, just relax and hold onto my board for a minute."

He grabbed onto my board and I let him catch his breath and kept an eye for incoming waves. My board immediately sunk. Holy sh*t, how big is this dude I think.

Me: "How tall are you?"
Him: 6 foot 5.
Me: "Wow, this outta be fun!" (I'm 5'9" and I was on my 6'4" SB)

The first wave that came we held on and got pushed in some. He starts to freak out again. I tell him that he has to calm down or we're both going to die and that I need his help getting him to shore. I told him grab onto my ankle and try to let your body float and I will paddle us closer to shore. He listened... at first. Then another wave came and he starts yelling and freaking out again. I kept calming him down and then instructing him to listen to me. He was unable to cooperate at this point. He was sinking me and was just an anchor. This went on for a while and the sun was starting to set and was getting darker. I started feeling like there was no way i'm getting this guy out of the water alone. He was starting to fade on me, kept telling me he couldn't breathe and that he couldn't move his arms or legs anymore. He also informed me that he has stage 1 stomach cancer and was just diagnosed 3 weeks ago...

After paddling for a while and not making much progress due to him being a complete anchor I decided it was time to get some additional help. While having him hold onto my board I began waving to shore and within a few minutes another surfer paddled out and I asked if he could help me get this guy to shore. He agreed. I helped this guy get completely on my board and told him to hold onto the guy's ankle like he was with me so he can paddle to shore and I would swim behind and push him, which worked!

After a little while we got him to a point where we felt like he could stand. I told him dude, you're 6'5", you should be able to stand now. He was afraid to. I finally convinced him it was OK. He stood, and then suddenly he had an adrenaline dump and began to collapse on us. We both grabbed him and held him up out of the water. I quickly realized this guy was easily 250lbs.

We managed to drag him out of the water and onto the sand, where he proceeded to vomit a bucket of water and whatever he had to eat that day. We kept him awake and sitting up but he kept losing consciousness and falling over and then waking up and throwing up more. His girlfriend comes over and didn't seem to understand the severity of the situation and I had to explain to her that he needed an ambulance.....

 

... After a couple minutes she finally calls and couldn't explain to the dispatch where we were. Sun was now set and was getting dark. I grabbed the phone and told them where to find us and explained what happened.
We waited a few minutes and the cops showed up first, then the EMT's. We carried him off the beach and he took a ride to the hospital.

I want to thank John, the guy who paddled out to assist, if you're on here dude, thank you very much for helping me save this guy. I hope to share a peak with you one day. I don't know if I could have gotten him out alone with the way he was crashing and the sheer size of this guy. His dead weight when he was on conscious was something serious.

Not exactly what I thought was going to happen when I paddled out for a quick 45 minute session before dark. I hope he's OK, sounds like he has a bigger battle ahead with the cancer. 27 years old too, such a shame.

 

Yeah, this really happened last evening. Felt like a movie, a bad, low budget, C or D grade movie. I was never in too much danger myself, I was calm and collected, but I was concerned that he was going to go to sleep out there, things could have gotten real interesting for me if that happened. Thankfully he waited to crash until his feet touched the ground, in waist deep water.

 

Thanks WBF, I was being called a hero by those who were there after we stabilized him. I didn't know how to take it (behind called a hero). I still don't. I didn't feel like a hero afterwards. I felt like I just swam with 250 extra pounds attached to me, which I did lol

I was lucky to have a fellow surfer who was willing to lend the assist. I was also lucky to have another surfer come help us drag him up to dry sand and keep him from choking on his vomit.

Oh, btw my shoulder feels good for the most part. I just have to be careful not to over extend my arm, need to keep it closer to my chest and it's good.

 

Thanks CBS, it was one for the memory banks.

 

o barry lol, I couldn't of.

Well thank you Betty, I'm proud to call you a friend as well. I do realize it could of ended up badly for me as well, I was however pretty confident I wasn't going to let that happen though. If nobody had come to assist, that could have been more of a possibility.

 

Yeah man, it was literately after I caught my 1st wave. Unreal.

 

Welcome back!

[video=youtube;K2XC22031bk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2XC22031bk[/video]

 

Thanks Bud. Funny thing, I almost didn't go. I almost took Flo's advice and gave it another day for the shoulder, but I couldn't wait. I normally would have gone to a different beach too but with limited time before sundown, I went to my "home beach" which is 10 minutes closer than my other spot I probably would have gone to if I had another 30 minutes. Little decisions have a way of changing ones path in life more than you know. I honestly don't think he would have made it if I didn't hear him, nobody else was close enough.