Grateful is an understatement. Photo: KTLA//Screenshot
In mid-March, a father and a daughter ran into trouble in the ocean near Oceanside, California. When they found themselves caught in a rip and unable to escape, a surf coach named Lucas Taub leapt into action and likely saved their lives. Now, a few weeks after he was hailed a hero, he’s telling his story.
According to initial reports, Taub was sitting on the jetty, coaching a student who was competing in the WSA Oceanside Harbor South Jetty surf contest when he spotted the pair struggling to stay afloat. Without a second thought, he jumped in fully clothed.
When the father realized that his daughter had been swept out, he sprinted down the beach and swam to her. But by the time he reached her, he too was exhausted.
“He ran so far down the beach that once he hit the water, the cold water kind of put him in shock and he had to swim out to her,” Taub told reporters at KTLA. “Everything happened so fast that he didn’t have much energy left.”
Chris Greene, the father, was scared not only for his life, but his daughter’s as well.
“I honest to God didn’t think I was going to make it,” he remembered. “When I got there, I was relieved. But I also realized that, when I had her, that I was just physically and mentally gone. ‘I’m wasted. I’m exhausted.'”
Thankfully, Taub managed to get them both safely back to the jetty, but Greene has learned something about how quickly things can go wrong.
“I thought she was with us, playing in the sand,” he said. “This is a lesson for me, you know, that things can happen in the snap of a finger.”
