{"id":364672,"date":"2026-06-17T20:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T20:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/364672\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T20:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T20:26:08","slug":"two-california-students-swept-out-to-sea-and-drowned-while-napping-on-beach-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/364672\/","title":{"rendered":"Two California students swept out to sea and drowned while napping on beach | California"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two college students died after being swept out to sea from a Santa Cruz beach as massive waves and dangerous rip currents inundated the California<\/a> coastline in recent days.<\/p>\n

Authorities confirmed this week that Harshita Nair, 21, and Mahial Sran, 20, were killed after the sudden swell at a Santa Cruz beach last Wednesday. Nair died last week while Sran died in a local hospital on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The incident came a day after a five-year-old girl in southern California was killed when turbulent waters swept the child, who was walking with her mother and brother, out to sea<\/a> from the shore of Treasure Island Beach in Orange county.<\/p>\n

Authorities have urged people to take precautions while visiting beaches throughout the state as the coast faced treacherous conditions<\/a> with the continuing king tides, a non-scientific term describing the highest tides of the year.<\/p>\n

On 10 June, local authorities in Santa Cruz responded to a beach for an ocean rescue of two women who had been pulled into the water. A team of about eight rescue swimmers helped pull Nair and Sran from the water, and they were taken to local hospitals by ambulance and helicopters.<\/p>\n

It was the fifth rescue firefighters had undertaken on that mile-long portion of coastline from Yellow Bank Beach to Bonny Doon Beach, the San Mateo-Santa Cruz unit of Cal Fire said in a statement online.<\/p>\n

Kyle Breton, a Santa Cruz county volunteer fire captain, said in a video that officials believed the two friends were napping near a rock archway between two beaches when the water came in and swept them out.<\/p>\n

Sran was a student at San Jose State University and Nair attended the University of California<\/a>, Berkeley, the universities confirmed to media outlets.<\/p>\n

In an obituary, Nair\u2019s family remembered her as a \u201ccherished sister, granddaughter and a treasured friend\u201d who \u201calways found a way to lift others up\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHarshita was truly full of life \u2013 radiating energy, warmth and joy wherever she went. She had a deep love for adventure and embraced every moment with enthusiasm and courage. Her spirit was contagious, her laughter uplifting and her presence comforting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two college students died after being swept out to sea from a Santa Cruz beach as massive waves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-364672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}