A last minute stop. A walk on the beach. A sneaker wave. A dramatic rescue all unfold on Yachats beach

 

By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews

YACHATS – A woman’s stop at the beach to run her dog before hitting the road to the Bay Area turned harrowing Thursday, Oct. 19 when a sneaker wave knocked people down and snatched a small child from her grandmother’s grip and tumbled her below the surface of the Yachats River.

Angela Wynia, a 50-year-old physician’s assistant from Portland, was in town to visit her mother-in-law Marje “Manna” Takei. Wynia was leaving when she made the last-minute stop to take her labradoodle Vesper to the beach below Yachats Ocean Road.

Despite blue skies, sun and warm temperatures there were not many people on the beach when the pair arrived at mid-tide around 12:30 p.m. Two men walked their dogs in the soft sand while down by the shore break there was a woman with a baby in a backpack and an older woman holding the hand of a small child.

“They were pretty far from me,” Wynia said. “I kind of noted they were pretty close to the shore break and thought ‘Okay, hopefully they know what they’re doing.’ I do remember having that thought.”

Wynia and Vesper were not far from the stairs leading down to the beach when she just happened to look back toward the surf and saw the woman with the baby was on the ground and trying to get back up as water streamed all around her.

“And then I heard some screaming,” Wynia said. “And I was like ‘Are they excited screaming?’

“But the other woman with the child was on the ground in the shore break clearly having trouble getting up. And then the small person — it was a child but I couldn’t tell how old — was being washed up the river.”

A huge wave had come in and torn the child from the woman’s grasp. Following it were several more sets of waves that crashed against the rip rap on the north bank of the river. It was “impressive,” said Wynia, who kept watching and trying to figure out whether it was a child or adolescent in the river.

“The river was not terribly deep and I thought maybe they can get up,” Wynia said. “And I’m walking toward them but I’m not yet scared and I’m just kind of watching and all of a sudden, the mom looks at me and yells – ‘We need help!’ And she starts screaming.”

Wynia ripped off her sweater and took her phone from her pocket and threw them in the sand as she raced toward the river.

“It was quite far,” she said. “And the mom was pretty far too.”

As Wynia drew closer she could see it was a young child, perhaps five years of age. Only the child’s face bobbed above the water. And then she went under.

“I ran into the river, which my dog thought was very exciting,” Wynia said.

The river was about mid-thigh deep when she reached the child.

“I grabbed her and tried to pull her up and she’s unbelievably heavy,” Wynia said. “She was wearing this fur-lined coat, like a child’s coat but it was soggy, it must have weighed 10 pounds. And her pant legs were completely full of sand, like she could not bend her legs to stand up. It was unbelievable. I could barely pick her up.

“Her eyes were open but her face was under water so I pulled her out and it took her a couple seconds and then she breathed and then she threw up a bunch of salt water. And then she was gasping but she was okay, she was breathing.”

Wynia tried to get the child to right herself but ended up having to pick her up and carry her out of the water to the beach.

“And at this point she was so scared,” Wynia said. “Oh my god. She was like ‘I think my granny’s dead! I think my granny’s dead!’ And I’m like ‘No no, here she is, she’s coming up the beach, she’s okay.’ She’s like ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to go to the water today!’ (while sobbing). I said, ‘I think you’re right.’ She was terrified.

“I really thought I was going to have to have to resuscitate her. It was very, very scary. I have had to do CPR on people before but this was definitely the closest I’ve been to child resuscitation. It was very scary.”

Better wave warnings

Wynia said she was talking to YachatsNews about the incident, which she did by phone on the road from Arcata, Calif., because she hopes to get better notice about sneaker waves.

“I don’t need a thanks, I don’t want anything,” Wynia said. “I actually just want more education around sneaker waves.”

The term “sneaker wave” derives from the observation that they can sneak up on unwary beachgoers. The National Weather Service’s Portland office had issued a beach hazard statement for sneaker waves on the central Oregon coast for Tuesday and Wednesday and then later Wednesday extended it until early Friday morning.

Sneaker waves first appear smaller than they actually are and can suddenly knock people down and even sweep them out to sea. The waves carry lots of sand and gravel, which can fill a person’s clothes and weigh them down.

Wynia said she practically raised her kids on the beach in Yachats and now has a house in Manzanita.

“We’re beach people. But every year these sneaker waves steal some kids and people just really don’t know, they don’t get the message. We just need really good signage and lots more education around sneaker waves, especially in town where a lot of tourists come. And especially on beautiful days, on these transition days.

“I think people get a false sense of calm around the ocean, particularly in spring and fall,” she said. “But it just tugs at my soul every time we lose children like this. It’s really, really hard and thankfully this one ended well. But that was seconds away from being a total tragedy.”

The other message Mynia wants to get out is for people to learn CPR.

“I rushed into that situation fully confident that I could save that child’s life because I know CPR.”

Back at the beach, Wynia, who had been monitoring the child’s breathing and determined she looked fine, passed the child to mother and grandmother.

“They all looked very, very stunned and shocked when they met with me on the beach,” she said “And I said ‘See grandma is okay’ and I just handed her off and I walked back to the car with them, just trying to give the little girl some assurance. And then they went to their car and I left.”

The identity of the child and her family is unknown — for now. Wynia went back to her mother-in-law’s house for a hot shower and then got back on the road.

• Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com