DANA POINT — Deputy Ryan Root arrived on the ocean side of the Dana Point Harbor jetty and saw a man being pushed underwater by his 25-foot sailboat — a boat that had just struck the rocks at the harbor jetty.
“I yelled at him to get away from the boat,” Root, 43, said Friday, April 13, recounting the incident that occurred on Monday, April 9. “I saw the boat going up and down with the swell and hit him in the head. He was just trying to hold himself in place. Within a minute, we see blood just pouring from his head to the point you couldn’t see the details of his face.”
The rescue that later saved the 45-year-old San Clemente man is among 40 life-saving Harbor Patrol rescues in Dana Point this year and 780 calls for service.
Deputies also responded to marine fires in January and March and a report of a stolen boat March 29, where failure to yield led to a pursuit that ended when the 24-year-old suspect crashed into the jetty. The man was booked on vandalism and grand theft.
Life-saving rescues range from kayakers who have fallen into the water and can’t get back on board, to paddleboarders lost in fog, to boat fires, boat equipment malfunctions and capsizing. In 2017, there were at least 100 lifesaving rescues in Dana Point and 2,693 calls for service. In 2016, there were 3,243 calls for service.
The rescue effort
Responding to Monday’s emergency, Root and Deputy Dave Dowbachuk recognized they had to get to the other side of the jetty to give Root better access and to keep their own boat from striking the rocks. Duke, the Orange County Sheriff Department’s helicopter, along with three locals on the jetty, kept watch on the injured man as the deputies made their way around.
Back at the spot of the accident in less than two minutes, Root climbed onto the rocks.
The tide had thrust the man over the lower rocks and into a crevice near the water line. As the tide rolled in, water washed over his head.
Root scrambled down the rocks to the crevice.
“He was so covered in blood that he was slippery,” Root said.
Root called to the man to try to self-rescue. The man attempted, but kept falling back, Root said. Finally, he managed to unhook himself from the rocks and move higher only to tumble down again.
By then other resources including a helicopter from the Orange County Fire Authority and state lifeguards from San Clemente and Doheny State Beach had arrived.
Lifeguards working a special event at San Onofre heard the calls on the emergency channel and alerted seasonal lifeguards on patrol at Doheny State Beach. One of the lifeguards, Diego Bussanto, got on his surfboard and paddled across the channel to assist Root with the victim. Several other lifeguards also entered the water, swimming through 3- to 5-foot swells to the jetty where the man was again wedged between the boat and the rocks.
US Tow boat arrived on scene with two off-duty state park seasonal lifeguards aboard. Malcom McClung and Derek Luab helped get the vessel attached to the tow line and pulled it away from the rocks.
Without threat of the boat near the rocks, Root made it to the man, who by then had become uncooperative.
“That can happen after being in shock from being in the cold water or from the head injury,” Root explained Friday, adding there was also a smell of alcohol on his breath.
Once Root had the man under control, several lifeguards who had made their way to the jetty, including Bussanto, treated the man whose injuries included head trauma and broken bones. Orange County Fire Rescue lowered a paramedic from the helicopter to prepare the man for extrication off the rocks. He was airlifted to Mission Hospital and has since been released.
Harbor Patrol is continuing its investigation. It’s possible that the man had fallen asleep with the boat anchored and it had drifted into the rocks, Root said.
In five years at Dana Point Harbor, Root said, he has made dozens of rock rescues. But this one, he said, was the scariest.
“He was either going to get squished by the rocks or drown in front of me,” Root said. “He was in peril and there was little I could do. I couldn’t get myself between the boats and rocks. It was like I was going to have to sit and watch him die. I was just glad I could help. It’s my job.”
Danger of the rocks
Sgt. Larry Packard, who oversees Root and eight other deputies in Dana Point Harbor, witnessed Root’s efforts.
“Every time the wave came in, the mast would come over like a metronome and he’d have to avoid it,” Packard said. “A 20-foot sailboat has tons of force, to be hit with that would have killed him.
Packard is not without his own recent lifesaving incidents.
On March 22, he was returning from a dolphin disentanglement off San Clemente pier when he heard a Mayday call for help from three men in a power boat with a broken transmission.
When Packard got to the area near the jetty, he saw some debris and an ice chest. Then three heads popped out of the water. The swell was pushing the boat toward the jetty and Packard was doing his best to get the men to swim away from it. Eventually, he pulled in all three. It had been their first day out with a new boat.
While it might be instinct to try and get to the rocks, that might be the most dangerous choice, he said.
“As a diver, some of our assignments have been to recover remains of victims that got between waves and the rocks of the jetty,” he said.
