LIHU‘E — The emergency-room nurse who lost her ex-husband in one of the island’s last drownings of 2009 wants people to live and learn from his tragedy. “I’m concerned about all the visitors who come here” and get into trouble
LIHU‘E — The emergency-room nurse who lost her ex-husband in one of the island’s last drownings of 2009 wants people to live and learn from his tragedy.
“I’m concerned about all the visitors who come here” and get into trouble in the deceptively inviting ocean waters. “It’s a dangerous place,” said Cynthia “Cindy” Puig.
Puig is an emergency-room nurse at Wilcox Memorial Hospital, and in three years there has seen numerous visitors injured on trails or in waters, she said.
Her ex-husband is Eliseo Ricardo “Rick” Puig Sr., 59, a retired physician who had just moved to Kaua‘i from Colorado.
He was discovered face down in the water at Kauapea Beach (Secret Beach) in Kilauea Dec. 23, and pronounced dead at Wilcox Memorial Hospital Dec. 24, she said.
The two of them traveled the world ocean diving, he was considered a good swimmer and enjoyed underwater photography, and still he managed to get into trouble at Kauapea, she said.
Cindy Puig said her ex-husband — they had been divorced for two months — may have gotten overconfident on a hot day with large surf at a beach where no lifeguard is present.
His companion that day, an unidentified Colorado resident, told him that she wasn’t going into the water because it was too rough, and by the time she exited the water and went a ways up the beach, she turned around to see Puig floating face-down in the water, Cindy Puig said.
The companion managed to bring Rick Puig Sr. to shore and started administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and emergency responders were called and responded, around noon Dec. 23, Cindy Puig said.
She was on her way home from work when she got a call from one of her daughters that a social worker had tracked the daughter down and told her that her father is en route to the emergency room and that there had been an accident, Cindy Puig said.
She turned her vehicle around and headed back to the hospital, and his entire family was present when he died around 10 a.m. Dec. 24.
“It’s been tragic on many levels,” she said.
Private services were held on Jan. 1, which would have been his 60th birthday. He didn’t want an obituary written for him, and was cremated.
He is survived by two daughters, Kelly Puig, 28, of Kapa‘a, and Courtney Puig Zietz, 26, of Kilauea; son Eliseo Ricardo “Rick” Puig Jr., 21, of Missouri; and granddaughter Bell Zietz, 16 months.
