The man who survived 12 hours adrift in the waters off the coast of Long Beach after being knocked off a jet ski said he considers it a miracle he\u2019s still alive.<\/p>\n
Paul Anthony Carbullido Jr., 53, remains hospitalized after his harrowing experience lost at sea. With nothing but a life jacket, the man could only wish to be saved. Thankfully, he was.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, man, there was relief,\u201d he said. \u201cI was like, if there’s a God out there, there was relief. I can’t describe it. I was ready to give up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carbullido said he and his roommate, Donna Durbay, decided to ride jet skis Sunday evening. A sunset ride of fun quickly turned dangerous as the night quickly turned dark.<\/p>\n
The two were hit by a wave and got knocked off their watercrafts. While Durbay was swept to the break wall, her roommate was swept out to sea. Carbullido was last seen at about 7 p.m. Sunday in the ocean east of the Queens Gate Entrance Channel before he was rescued 12 hours later by the U.S. Coast Guard.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA man who went missing after being knocked off a Jet Ski by a wave was rescued hours after his disappearance. Mekahlo Medina reports for the NBC4 News at 5 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 17, 2026.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cI was there all night, like just, just thinking of the worst,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI didn’t know which direction to go because it was real dark, you know? And I was just paddling, paddling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Durbay admitted that she and Carbullido were inexperienced in riding jet skis, and Carbullido can\u2019t swim. After they got knocked off their watercrafts, Durbay was unable to start hers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI phoned the place where we rented them and I told them, \u2018My friend tipped over on his. We can’t get him in and now it’s completely dark out and I can’t see anything,\u2019\u201d Durbay said.<\/p>\n
Durbay searched for Carbullido in the dark but was unable to find him. In a perilous predicament, herself, she began to yell for help and was rescued after being in the water for five hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cI left the hospital, and I came home, and I just thought he was dead,\u201d she said. \u201cI was really, really scared.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thankfully, Carbullido was found alive Monday morning about 2.5 miles off Seal Beach Pier. The Coast Guard hoisted him to safety and took him to a hospital.<\/p>\n
Bruised, sore and recovering from hypothermia, Carbullido said he\u2019s thankful to be alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man who survived 12 hours adrift in the waters off the coast of Long Beach after being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-437164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437164","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=437164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}