PO‘IPU — Lunch can wait. Seeing two surfers struggling a few hundred yards off the coast of Prince Kuhio Beach, Kaua‘i resident Jesse Uemura abandoned the sandwich he was eating Wednesday afternoon and dove in after them. Ken and Dixie
PO‘IPU — Lunch can wait.
Seeing two surfers struggling a few hundred yards off the coast of Prince Kuhio Beach, Kaua‘i resident Jesse Uemura abandoned the sandwich he was eating Wednesday afternoon and dove in after them.
Ken and Dixie Burgess of Houston, Texas, watched the rescue unfold after county lifeguards were alerted at nearby Po‘ipu Beach Park. The couple, who have visited Kaua‘i annually for the past 15 years, said Uemura swam out to one of the men in distress and brought him in.
He then grabbed his board off his truck and paddled out to tow in the other man who was out past the PK’s break.
Exhausted, the two visitors both thanked Uemura for his help.
“You saved our lives,” Ken Burgess recalled the men telling Uemura flatly after they were all safe and sound back on shore.
“Don’t try that again guys, OK?” Burgess recalled Uemura responding.
The two men, both apparently novice surfers, had rented the boards. Waves were in the two- to three-foot range Wednesday at Prince Kuhio, according to www.kauaiexplorer.com, a website that offers useful ocean safety information.
The crowd that witnessed the rescue — which started around 2:20 p.m. and ended around 2:45 p.m. — gave Uemura a standing ovation, the Burgesses said.
Lifeguards arrived soon thereafter.
“He was just a good citizen,” Dixie Burgess said of Uemura. “Jesse saw these kids in trouble and he was off and got them.”
The Burgesses, who are staying at a timeshare in Po‘ipu, said they saw a similar rescue earlier in the week when a couple boogie boarders got into trouble after being swept out past a different South Shore break.
“We’ve been very impressed with the rescue people here,” Dixie Burgess said. “They’re really on it … a well-trained and conscientious group.”
