LIHUE — A 20-year-old woman narrowly escaped becoming Kauai’s 18th drowning victim of the year, according to a pair of quick-to-act eyewitnesses. “She had been in the water for 25 minutes,” said 66-year-old Don Brown, one of two men who
LIHUE — A 20-year-old woman narrowly escaped becoming Kauai’s 18th drowning victim of the year, according to a pair of quick-to-act eyewitnesses.
“She had been in the water for 25 minutes,” said 66-year-old Don Brown, one of two men who raced to the woman’s rescue Thursday afternoon. “She only had one or two minutes left to live.”
The incident occurred at Polihale Beach, on Kauai’s Westside.
Brown said he and his friend, 63-year-old Steve Childers, had been surfing at the far end of the beach and were about to leave for the day when two men in their 20s drove up in a pickup truck and told them of the woman in trouble.
“We could tell by their voices there was something seriously wrong,” Brown said.
The two men reportedly jumped in their car and drove approximately a quarter mile down the beach, where they saw a large crowd looking out into the ocean.
Brown said the woman was about 100 yards from the beach and that it took him and Childers between three and four minutes to paddle out to her. It had been a high surf day. Waters were rough, with a strong current.
Childers reached the woman first.
“She was done,” he said. “The only thing she could say was, ‘Help me!’ And there was not a whole lot of volume to it. She was barely keeping her head above water.”
Childers said the woman was in shock, and her eyes never left the beach.
The two men were able to put the woman on the back end of Childers’ surfboard and make their way to shore, where a crowd was waiting to assist.
“She was coughing up a lot of water,” Childers remembered.
County spokeswoman Sarah Blane said firefighters from the Waimea Station arrived on scene at 3:05 p.m. and found the woman already on shore being assisted by bystanders. Firefighters then transported the woman to the parking lot, where medics transported her to Kauai Veterans Medical Hospital.
“The woman, age 20, of Illinois, has since been released from medical care and is in good health,” Blane said in an email.
Brown said it was a “fluke” that he and his friend were even there, and that he was sure the woman wouldn’t have survived much longer.
“It was surreal almost when it was over,” Childers added. “It was like, ‘Wow, did that really happen?’”
Dr. Monty Downs, president of the Kauai Lifeguard Association, said Friday that he had not heard about the incident, but was “very happy” to hear the woman made it out alive.
Downs did receive a report about a man in the U.S. Air Force who saved two people who had been pulled out at Hanakapiai Beach last week.
“The man grabbed a couple of the rescue tubes we have out there and swam out and pulled off the save — and then a passing tour boat pulled all three of them off the rocks down the coast that they had managed to work their way onto,” Downs wrote in an email.
After a total of four drownings in 2012 — a year the KLA described as the “best statistical ocean safety year in recorded history” — this year got off to a tragic start. In the first two months, Kauai waters claimed six individuals, including five tourists.
And the count has continued to climb, leaving community members and local leaders frustrated.
On Nov. 15, 58-year-old visitor Douglas Sposato, of New York, was pulled from the water fronting Lawai Beach Resort.
He was transported to Wilcox Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Sposato was the 17th drowning victim on Kauai this year.
Information about Kauai’s ocean conditions and ocean safety can be found at www.kauailifeguards.org, www.kauaiexplorer.com and www.travelsmarthawaii.com.
