Imagine you are one of the North Shore county lifeguards, done working a full shift on New Year’s Day and preparing to settle in for a New Year’s dinner, maybe some cold liquid refreshments. Then the phone rings. Your assistance
Imagine you are one of the North Shore county lifeguards, done working a full shift on New Year’s Day and preparing to settle in for a New Year’s dinner, maybe some cold liquid refreshments.
Then the phone rings.
Your assistance is requested to help rescue a 9-year-old visitor from Utah who has been swept out to sea from Hanakapi’ai Beach along Na Pali Coast.
Lifeguards Jody Simpson and Gavin Kennelly did just that New Year’s Day, assisting Kaua’i Fire Department officials in searching for and finding safe the young boy and his father, screaming for help in a sea cave somewhere between Hanakapi’ai and Ke’e Beach in Ha’ena.
The initial call came in around 5:51 p.m. Thursday that a young boy had been swept out to sea from Ke’e. Quickly, that report was corrected that the boy was swept out from Hanakapi’ai, where he, other family members and friends in a party of eight had been swimming.
He had been pulled by ocean currents toward Ha’ena from Hanakapi’ai.
Rescue and engine crews from the Princeville fire station responded, the Inter-Island Helicopters rescue bird was called in, picking up a rescue crew from the Lihu’e fire station on the way to the North Shore, according to Alan Hashimoto, KFD acting battalion chief.
Lifeguard assistance was requested, but they had gone home for the day. Fire Apparatus Operator Gary Hudson had a cell-phone number for one of the lifeguards, who was on the road with his rescue craft in tow when contacted.
Lifeguard and firefighter rescue crafts were launched, and along the way it was learned that the party whose members got into trouble numbered eight visitors, all without lights, who had gone into Hanakapi’ai on a day hike.
While Kaua’i Police Department officers gathered information from some of the party members at Ke’e, the mother of the victim came off the trail at Ke’e and announced that all but her son and husband were accounted for.
That set off a search of the coastline from Ke’e back towards Hanakapi’ai. Rescuers, including the lifeguards and firefighters including Hudson, Lehia Pomroy, Makali’i Andrade, and Dane Smith, heard cries for help coming from a cave somewhere between Ke’e and Hanakapi’ai.
The position the boy and his father were in in the cave made it impossible to get rescue equipment from Inter-Island Helicopters to the two, so firefighters and lifeguards braved the surging surf and swam into the cave with personal rescue equipment.
Seeing a lull in the waves, they took the boy and father out of the cave, and soon they were all safe on rescue craft and heading back to Tunnels (Makua Beach), where the crew of an American Medical Response ambulance checked out the visitors.
All the while, the Inter-Island Helicopters craft provided crucial lighting for rescuers.
The fire units were back in service by 8:29 p.m.
Associate Editor Paul C. Curtis may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net.
