Photo: KSBW Action News 8 // YouTube
A boat blasted through the Steamer Lane lineup over the weekend, capsizing and pitching its six occupants overboard. Luckily, nearby surfers came to their rescue, as seen in newly released footage.
One of the surfers who came to the passengers’ aid was 14-year-old Ian Anderson. He also happened to have taken out a GoPro into the lineup to record his surfing, but it ended up capturing a POV account of his dramatic rescue of a young boy.
“I looked over and I saw a boat in the water,” Anderson told KSBW Action News 8, “I just looked in a different direction and see this kid floating in the water, yelling for help. So I was wondering what was happening, just freaking out a little bit.”
News of the wreck first came through on Monday, when another surfer, big wave legend Darryl “Flea” Virostko, recounted his rescue of the boy’s father in an Instagram post. “I saw the boat coming as I was outside dodging a big middle peak set,” he wrote. “He zoomed by me and I saw he had his family on the boat. As I watched him drive straight into a big whitewash, I knew they went down and it was time to paddle in as quickly as possible to help save the family. Unbelievable [that] these small children made it out of this boat wreck. When I arrived at the scene of the yard sale, [Mike Dilloughery] was trying to help both the parents from drowning. They were not wearing life vests. I put the dad on my board and [Dilloughery] took the mom. We had sets on the head and the [boat] was about 20 feet outside of us with waves coming. Very sketchy. The dad was freaking out, asking about all the kids and there was a language barrier so it was hard to understand. There were four kids, so we started yelling around the lineup. All kids got saved. We drifted down towards the Santa Cruz wharf channel. Harbor patrol showed up and we got everyone on board safe.”
