\u201cIt was a completely freaky deal,\u201d his father, Alan Renard, said Thursday.\u00a0\u201cHe broke his neck. It is unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n
His fellow lifeguards rushed to help him, providing critical care and ensuring he was quickly transported to a hospital, where he underwent emergency spinal surgery.<\/p>\n
![\"Finn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SUT-L-INTERN-HURT-02.jpg\")
Finn Renard plays with a football in Mission Bay last summer. (Courtesy of Renard family)<\/p>\n
The first week after his injury, he was talking and joking with visitors, many of whom were friends and coworkers from the lifeguard program. But he had trouble \u201cclearing his lungs\u201d because of his spinal injury and developed pneumonia and a staph infection, his father said.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, his mother, Courtney Renard, shared on the GoFundMe site that Finn had been put on an advanced life-support machine that pumps and oxygenates a patient\u2019s blood outside the body. Renard said the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, machine was \u201cletting his lungs heal after fighting for over 2 weeks to breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an update posted Thursday, she wrote that Finn was stable, and that there were \u201cno improvements other than he\u2019s not getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been told this is gonna be a long road, but it\u2019s not the end of the road,\u201d she wrote, adding, \u201cWhen there is news about his beginning to recover from life-support, we\u2019ll post.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Renard family had lived in San Diego until about five years ago when they moved to an area near Fort Worth, Texas. With family and friends still in the area, they regularly visit for vacations. Finn had enrolled in the Junior Lifeguard camp for two summers before applying for a paid internship this year, his father said.<\/p>\n
The popular city-run program has been around for more than 70 years and is designed to teach children and teens beach safety, first aid and CPR, and water rescue techniques. Around 1,500 junior lifeguards, ranging in age from 7 to 17, participated in the program\u2019s two sessions this summer.<\/p>\n
Interns are older youths who have completed their sophomore or junior years of high school. Before they are hired for the internship, which lasts nine weeks, they must run a mile in less than eight minutes and 30 seconds, complete a 500-yard swim in less than 10 minutes and go through a job interview.<\/p>\n
Finn, who has an older brother and sister, was supposed to have started his senior year of high school this month. He is interested in becoming a pilot and took flying lessons this summer at Gillespie Field, said his father, a former Navy pilot.<\/p>\n
Down the line, the family hopes that Finn can be transferred to Craig Hospital, a spinal cord rehabilitation center in Colorado.<\/p>\n
As of Friday afternoon, people had pledged more than $101,000 to the GoFundMe account.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur San Diego Junior Lifeguard interns and staff are part of our Fire-Rescue family. Finn\u2019s injury has deeply affected our team, and we have remained in close contact with his parents,\u201d the fire department said in a statement. \u201cOur hearts are with Finn and his loved ones, and we will continue to offer our support throughout his recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finn\u2019s father said he had a steady stream of visitors after his surgery, a reflection of the strong bond forged among those in the lifeguard service. Lifeguard Chief James Gartland and other lifeguard staffers, including some who helped rescue Finn from the water, were among the visitors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lifeguard community is powerful. It is really strong, and the bonds they create and the friendships they create is just overwhelming,\u201d Alan Renard said, adding: \u201cThese kids and adults have been traumatized by this whole thing just like we have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A San Diego junior lifeguard intern who suffered a serious spinal injury while diving into Mission Bay last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,138,181,23,100,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-440135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440135","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=440135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}