A California woman plunged into turbulent surf to save an unconscious surfer after witnessing a powerful wave hurl him against rocks along the San Diego County shoreline.
Benita Karo, 39, was walking near the beach in Oceanside on the morning of Sept. 26 when she paused to watch unusually large waves battering the coast.
Karo, who lives in nearby Carlsbad, told the California Post that she had picked up a coffee and was thinking about her daughter’s 14th birthday celebration later that day. She took out her phone to capture video of the rough conditions.
Karo told the Post that she works as a celebrity publicist for authors who write about Elvis Presley.
While filming, she noticed a surfer carrying his board and attempting to leave the water. An enormous wave was building behind him, but he apparently had no idea it was approaching.
“I see the wave. He doesn’t see it. It’s massive, and it just hits him, and he didn’t even see it coming,” Karo told the Post.
The wave slammed the man into the rocks. Karo ran toward the water, waiting for him to emerge.
He never did.
“When I got closer, I saw him upside down, face down in the water, not awake at all. Like he was knocked out,” Karo said.
Without taking time to change out of her clothes, Karo entered the water and seized the surfer, keeping his head above the surface as waves continued to pound them against the rocks and seawall.
“I sat there with him, holding him, just trying to keep his head above water,” she said.
MORE ON THIS: How to Watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 18, Episode 8: Start Time and Livestream
A second surfer eventually noticed the rescue, and people from a nearby beach house hurried to assist. Working together, they pulled the injured man from the water and brought him onto the shore.
Emergency responders arrived soon afterward. They cut away part of the surfer’s wetsuit, placed him on a gurney and transported him for medical care.
Karo said the man appeared to be trying to breathe, with water coming from his mouth.
“He was definitely breathing,” Karo said.
Karo was also hurt during the rescue. She told the California Post that she suffered scratches and injuries to her toe, face and back while navigating the rocky water.
The incident also drew on experience from Karo’s first job: She became a lifeguard at age 15.
At the time, she worked at a water park with a wave pool, where staff could turn off the waves during an emergency. The open ocean, she noted, offered no such option.
“At the ocean, you just can’t turn off the waves; they just keep coming,” she said.
The dramatic rescue unfolded as millions of people along Mexico’s Pacific Coast braced for the arrival of a monster storm.
A powerful Category 3 hurricane is zeroing in on Baja California, warning of life-threatening flash floods, flattening winds and massive surf as it barrels toward landfall in the coming hours.
Hurricane Polo, packing sustained winds near 115 mph, is forecast to slam into the west coast of Baja California Sur late this afternoon or evening, per the National Hurricane Center.