A fully clothed woman was swept from the sand at Treasure Island Beach, pulled out into churning surf barreling toward a steep shorebreak near the Montage Resort.
The South Laguna stretch of beaches, including Treasure Island, is popular for its dramatic high cliffs, rocky outcroppings and remote coves.
But the stunning geography can make the area dangerous for beach visitors, said Laguna Beach Marine Safety Chief Kai Bond, whose department two years ago added the 2.5-mile stretch previously monitored by county crews to the 5.5 miles of Laguna Beach coastline it already patrolled.
“Our rocks, our shorebreak, our isolated coves,” Bond said. “Everybody is drawn to Laguna, but it’s important when they come here, they understand they really need to know how to swim and check in with the lifeguard before entering the water, because all these beautiful things can be incredibly dangerous.”
Safeguarding beachgoers requires vigilant work and the City Council recently honored the three Laguna Beach lifeguards who, with the assistance of three teenage surfers, rescued the woman who was caught in a rip current and swept 20 yards out to sea off Treasure Island. The council also awarded the three surfers from San Clemente with Recognition of Bravery certificates.
“Upon arriving, lifeguards found several victims struggling in the water, each experiencing different levels of distress,” Bond said, telling councilmembers of the rescue. “Thanks to the prompt and decisive actions of our lifeguards, alongside three brave surfers, we were able to stabilize a semi-conscious near-drowning victim and two others with injuries.”
Bond said the surfers reached the woman — the most critical patient — beyond the surfline and provided “initial support.”
“Their early intervention made a significant positive difference in the outcome of this emergency,” he said.
The teens sprang to action before two lifeguards from the neighboring Aliso Beach tower and a Marine Safety lieutenant arrived.
Fortunately for the woman, who was visiting from Ohio, Levi Mauga, 19, Mason Davis, 16, and Tommy Zahalka, 15, were at the beach that day, drawn to the 4-foot surf they watched roll in on the surf cam.
“It looked really fun,” said Mauga, explaining that the area is known for being a “good place to drop into and get washed around in.”
While he said the shoreline is more treacherous than the expansive beaches of San Clemente, their skill and mastery in the ocean in their home surfbreak gave them the know-how to react in an emergency.
“Being confident in the ocean is the most key thing,” Mauga said. “You don’t want to ever panic.”
And, it was just that attitude that was needed on July 18, close to 8 p.m., after Mauga and his friends finished their surf session. Some of the fun they had, he worried, may have made tourists there not recognize the dangers.
“Treasure Island and Aliso are two pretty big tourist beaches,” he said. “There’s this huge shorebreak. Tourists will see locals surfing, and it makes it look really easy, but it’s not for most people.”
As Mauga and his friends packed up, a guy on the beach alerted them to some people in the water.
“They might need your boards,” Mauga recalled him saying.
At first, Mauga said it seemed like the people in the water were “hanging out and having fun,” but, to be sure, he asked Davis, since he hadn’t changed yet, to go out with his boogie board and check.
When he didn’t come back quickly, Mauga dropped his gear and jumped in with his soft-top swim board to see what was up.
“I saw an elderly woman. I tried to talk to her, but she couldn’t say anything,” he said, recalling her struggle and Davis trying to stabilize her on his boogie board.
Zahalka, who was also heading out now, helped pull another man who had gotten onto Mauga’s board through the surf to the sand and then joined his friends in the water. The trio brainstormed about how to get the woman back to shore.
They began swimming her in through the surf when Mauga sensed a new set of waves stacking on the horizon. He knew the momentum they brought could be dangerous. The trio decided they needed to “make a U-turn back through the waves” and come back in with the next sets.
“Thank God we got through all those waves because if one of those waves caught us, she would’ve a 100% died,” Mauga said. “It would have taken her, and she would have landed on the sand and possibly broken her neck and drowned.”
Instead, the rescue ended as a positive anecdote showcasing the dangers that Bond and his staff of 100 faced daily this summer — there were 10,329 rescues and 5,617 medical aids between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the department reported.
Since taking over South Laguna beaches two years ago, Bond has added staffing hours, including having lifeguards on the beaches later into the evening.
The staffing changes, the addition of beach cameras (with plans to add more next year), and the introduction of Wave Watch, the department’s bright yellow rescue vessel, are making a significant difference in safety for beachgoers, he said.
In the summer of 2024, the city was overwhelmed with visitors and, in many cases, lots of bad behavior, prompting officials to appeal on social media, asking visitors to respect the city’s laws and neighborhoods.
That year, Bond said lifeguards made 9,618 rescues and reached out 6,741 times to educate people on appropriate and safe beachgoing behaviors.
This summer, to his own “eye test,” Bond said the beaches seemed even busier.
“When we assumed responsibility, we wanted to mirror our staffing in South Laguna with the north and the rest of town,” Bond said. “We found that because the beaches there are more crowded, like 9th and 10th streets, we added rover positions to protect around the rocky areas that are difficult to get to.”
“One of the biggest improvements was the addition of Wave Watch and being able to get to those hard-to-reach areas in a much quicker and efficient manner,” he added.
Bond said he took advantage of the city cameras recently installed at those beaches to decide when to move lifeguards around, determined by the crowd sizes.
And, when emergencies arose, he sent in Wave Watch. The 33-foot vessel came to the department in May 2024 and, since then, has helped at least six people where quick intervention meant the difference between life and death, he said.
“A lot of that can lean on the response time, cause you’re not dealing with traffic,” Bond said. “That’s a really big deal.”
One of the three lifeguards who have gone through extensive training to operate the vessel is Marine Safety Lt. Tom Cantrell, who oversees lifeguards along the South Laguna beaches and who was also there during the rescue of the woman at Treasure Island.
Mostly, he said, Wave Watch stays out near the more remote beaches.
“We can get to those coves at an accelerated rate,” he said. “It’s been a total force multiplier for us. It’s saved so many lives.”
One of those lifesaving rescues happened at Bluebird Beach in August, when Wave Watch responded to a 9-1-1 call for a possible cardiac arrest. Cantrell and his crew were at Rockledge Beach and the ground-based crew was at the closer Woods Cove, but Wave Watch got there in about one minute, Cantrell said.
“The deckhand and I jumped off the boat and swam in where the patient was,” he said, adding that the firefighters could also respond quickly from the nearby Agate Street fire station. “The individual got lucky that all those resources were pretty dang close. It’s my understanding that one of the people who works at Surf & Sand and was setting up beach chairs knew CPR and started compressions. Our tower lifeguard took over and then all the other resources responded.”
“By the time we transferred care to the ambulance, he was conscious, breathing, and talking,” Cantrell said. “It was a pretty amazing situation of teamwork between all the different entities that were there.”
In his 22 years, Cantrell has seen a broad spectrum of lifeguard calls, all with their own set of dangers.
“When all the teamwork comes together and everyone goes to work and puts their heads down, the communication is good, the treatment is good, and you get the positive outcome,” he said. “Nothing gets too much better than that working in this line of work.”