{"id":268685,"date":"2026-06-16T17:50:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T17:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/268685\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T17:50:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T17:50:32","slug":"friends-killed-while-sleeping-on-santa-cruz-beach-along-highway-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/268685\/","title":{"rendered":"Friends killed while sleeping on Santa Cruz beach along Highway 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two friends have been killed after being swept into the ocean<\/a> in Santa Cruz County as dangerous waves battered the California coastline.<\/p>\n

Harshita\u00a0Nair, 21, and Mahial Sran, 20, both of Fremont, were identified as the victims at Bonny Doon Beach <\/a>last Wednesday, the local sheriff-coroner\u2019s office confirmed.<\/p>\n

Nair was a legal studies major at UC Berkely set to graduate in 2027. Sran was set to earn her degree in public health at San Jos\u00e9 State University in 2027. Both women graduated in 2023 from Washington High School in Fremont.<\/p>\n

They were understood to have been napping near a keyhole on the notoriously dangerous beach when the waves swept them out to sea.<\/p>\n

Harshita\u00a0Nair was a legal studies major at UC Berkely set to graduate in 2027. Linkedin<\/p>\n

Nair\u2019s grieving father told The Post on Monday he did not know what the friends were doing when tragedy struck. \u201cI have no idea what happened,\u201d said Ahock Nair of his daughter\u2019s death. \u201cI\u2019m still in shock.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Multiple law enforcement agencies responded to the treacherous\u00a0beach\u00a0to rescue the women after a witness called 911 at about 5 p.m.<\/p>\n

Mahial Sran was set to earn her degree in public health at San Jos\u00e9 State University in 2027. Instagram\/@mahial_22s<\/p>\n

Santa Cruz County Volunteer Fire Captain Kyle Breton said about eight rescue swimmers entered the dangerous waters to extricate the victims.<\/p>\n

The beach is known for being unsafe due to an extremely steep surf line with strong currents and rogue waves.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth of these patients, we believe, were originally sleeping right at the keyhole, which is an area that we\u2019re finding catches people unaware,\u201d Breton said.<\/p>\n

Once rescued, one of the women was transported by\u00a0helicopter to Yellow Bank Beach atop the bluffs before being taken to a local hospital, said Breton.<\/p>\n

The friends were napping on the shore when they were caught by a killer wave. Facebook\/CALFIRECZUSanMateoSantaCruz<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the other woman was brought to\u00a0Panther Beach, where she was carried in a stokes basket to a waiting ambulance and transported to a local hospital.<\/p>\n

Nair died soon after the rescue. Sran remained at a local hospital in critical condition until Saturday, according to the Santa Cruz sheriff-coroner. Authorities have yet to officially determine their cause and manner of death.<\/p>\n

Authorities said Wednesday\u2019s rescue was the fifth\u00a0water rescue\u00a0the first responders performed in the past month along the one-mile stretch of Santa Cruz County coastline between Yellow Bank Beach and Bonny Doon Beach.<\/p>\n

Eight rescue swimmers enterred the water to recover the women. Facebook\/CALFIRECZUSanMateoSantaCruz<\/p>\n

Authorities issued a warning due to inceased beach emergencies in Santa Cruz. Facebook\/CALFIRECZUSanMateoSantaCruz<\/p>\n

The incident came a day after a\u00a0San Bernardino 5-year-old, Amada Mia Brown, was swept into the ocean near\u00a0Laguna Beach<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Amada died<\/a> after being caught in the powerful surf that battered California\u2019s coast\u00a0for much of the last week. She was scheduled to begin kindergarten<\/a> in the San Bernardino City Unified School District in August.<\/p>\n

A saddened co-worker said Sran worked part-time as a cashier for the Michael Kors Outlet at Great Mall in Milpitas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sensitive subject,\u201d the co-worker said of Sran\u2019s passing. Sran was also president of a public health club at her college, according to her LinkedIn profile.<\/p>\n

The incident came a day after San Bernardino 5-year-old Amada Mia Brown was swept into the ocean near\u00a0Laguna Beach. Tatiana Puerta\/gofundme<\/p>\n

A powerful south swell created dangerous conditions at beaches across California. Facebook\/SantaCruzSheriffsOffice<\/p>\n

Nair was an intern at the UC Berkeley student union, according to her LinkedIn profile. A former co-worker said she worked at a UPS Store in Fremont until several months ago.<\/p>\n

The dangerous water conditions along the California coast last week were being driven by a powerful southern swell that rocked beaches across the Pacific Ocean, according to officials with the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff\u2019s Office issued a warning after responding to an increased number of water rescues over the past few weeks.<\/p>\n

Breton said beachgoers in Santa Cruz are frequently caught unawares by the rising ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re also seeing is that people go through the keyhole to get to Yellow Bank Beach, and then they get trapped on Yellow Bank Beach because of the tides,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two friends have been killed after being swept into the ocean in Santa Cruz County as dangerous waves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2136,11648,57,9,11,10,12561,58],"class_list":["post-268685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-california","tag-drownings","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-ocean","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}