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The California Department of Parks and Recreation described Williams as a rookie lifeguard who was working at Tower 2 and making safety contacts throughout the day because of the heavy surf and large crowds.<\/p>\n
The agency said Williams was unavailable for an interview but released a written statement Wednesday night from him describing the rescue.<\/p>\n
Williams said he was near the waterline making a safety contact when he saw the boy lose his footing in ankle-deep water about 20 yards from his tower. He radioed the emergency, dropped his radio and sunglasses and ran toward the child.<\/p>\n
He said he entered the water with his rescue buoy but was unable to secure the boy because of the volatile conditions. After the first wave struck, Williams said, he could not pull the boy from the water because the child was limp and the surf was pushing too forcefully.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were two to three more waves before lifeguard Aaron Bohnen entered the water to help me,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
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Williams said he and Bohnen brought the child ashore and assessed him before Williams returned to his tower for the remainder of his shift.<\/p>\n
Dallas father praises teen lifeguard after California beach rescue<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m grateful to have had the opportunity to return the child to his family safely,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThis is my job and I love what I do. I\u2019m thankful to my fellow lifeguards who perform rescues just like this every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rai said his son told him about the rescue several hours later. The boy told him he thought he was going to die.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t sleep for nights,\u201d Rai said. \u201cAll I could think about after watching that was, what if it had gone differently by a couple of seconds?\u201d<\/p>\n
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California State Parks said a high surf advisory was in effect in Santa Cruz County that day. Seabright State Beach has a relatively steep shoreline where heavy surf breaks close to shore, a condition known as shore break.<\/p>\n
The agency said the beach was experiencing consistent 4- to 6-foot waves, with some reaching an estimated 10 feet, because of the direction of the swell and the underwater contours of the beach.<\/p>\n
Vander Dussen said he first noticed the boy\u2019s dark hair amid a blanket of white foam as waves pulled him away from shore. He and a beachgoer alerted a nearby lifeguard, who radioed the tower closest to the boy.<\/p>\n
Dangerous Santa Cruz surf nearly drowns Dallas boy before lifeguard rescue<\/p>\n
Williams was already running toward the water when Vander Dussen began recording.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI thought this was just going to be another cool picture of a lifeguard running,\u201d Vander Dussen said. \u201cWhen I recognized that the waves were so intense, that\u2019s when I changed it to video mode.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vander Dussen, who said he has spent about five years photographing Santa Cruz lifeguards and has witnessed numerous rescues, said none was as dramatic as Saturday\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Conditions changed quickly, driving nearly everyone else from the water. At one point, Vander Dussen said Ryder and the boy appeared to be the only people in the ocean.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe balance between success and failure was just degrees of separation,\u201d he said. \u201cHad it not been for the vigilance of Ryder and his tremendous grip on this young victim, I\u2019m certain this young boy would not have gone home.\u201d<\/p>\n
The video shows rescuers carrying the boy toward shore. Vander Dussen stopped recording and walked closer. By the time he reached the group, the boy was sitting up and speaking with lifeguards, he said. Firefighters and an ambulance arrived soon afterward.<\/p>\n
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Vander Dussen said he did not observe anyone who appeared to be the boy\u2019s parent during the rescue or during the roughly two minutes he remained after the boy reached shore.<\/p>\n
Related: Off-duty North Texas firefighter saves 3 children trapped under boat on Fourth of July<\/a><\/p>\nAttempts to reach the boy\u2019s mother for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
The footage quickly spread online and drew the attention of President Donald Trump. In a social media post Tuesday, Trump called Williams a \u201cheroic young man\u201d and said he planned to invite the teenager and his family, and possibly the boy he rescued, to the White House for a high civilian honor.<\/p>\n
Rai said he had spoken only briefly with his children since the rescue and expected to learn more when they return home to Dallas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a miracle he survived,\u201d Rai said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rookie lifeguard rescued a young boy from intense waves at Seabright State Beach in Santa Cruz on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,88032,89512,87998,89138,91243],"class_list":["post-393074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-dallas-fortworth","tag-tp-texas","tag-tp-dallas","tag-tp-dallas-county","tag-tp-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}