Confusion for Sonoma Coast rescuers after tourists’ New Year's dip in Russian River

Sonoma Coast emergency officials Monday still were shaking their heads at what turned out to be an unwarranted New Year’s night call for help at the mouth of the Russian River involving a pair of inebriated Russian visitors attempting a holiday ritual dip that for a tense hour appeared to involve at least one, if not two, drownings.

At least seven agencies, including the Sonoma County sheriff’s helicopter and a U.S. Coast Guard boat crew, responded to two calls about 7 p.m. - one each from the two women, or friends they were with, who separately feared the other had drowned.

Officials said there was potential for great danger for the two visitors, who reportedly had been attempting to walk across the river’s mouth to meet in the middle as a New Year’s Day rite. But while they hadn’t succeeded, both had gotten out of the river and were fine - information that didn’t get to the many rescuers looking for them for some time.

“They were lucky they weren’t sucked out to sea,” said Monte Rio Fire Chief Steve Baxman, who helped coordinate the would-be rescue.

Monday, Baxman and others characterized the unusual call as an effort to practice their skills and a cautionary tale.

“It was a pretty good drill for the first day of the year,” Baxman said. “The best part was nobody drowned.”

Tim Murphy, a veteran state parks lifeguard who was one of three responding off-duty lifeguards, said the response helped the coast agencies hone their coordinated rescue efforts.

“If you say the buzzwords ‘ocean rescue’ it sends everybody out,” Murphy said. “We take it very seriously. The information we had was one or two people had been swept out of the river mouth.”

“Sometimes we do shake our heads. Like all humans, we make good choices and bad choices. If you’re adding alcohol into it, it can cloud your judgment,” Murphy said. “But that’s not the place or the beach to be doing it at.”

Baxman, a veteran west county firefighter, estimated the rescue operation likely cost the responding agencies a total of a least $8,000 to $10,000.

The mouth of the Russian River, a picturesque scene where the river meets the ocean at Jenner, is a popular spot for beach walkers, seal watchers, kayakers and others. It’s also a frequent area of trouble over the years involving many who’ve been swept out to sea or been caught up in the turbulence where the ocean meets the river. Sometimes the trouble turns fatal.

A 63-year-old kayaker from San Rafael died in the surf at the same spot two weeks ago after his boat flipped in the waves at the river mouth.

Friday night, with temperatures dropping into the lows 40s or upper 30s, the river drew four women, ages 27 to 39, from Moscow and St. Petersburg, who were in Jenner on New Year’s Day.

Somewhat inebriated, two of them decided to wade, fully clothed, into the river, Baxman said. The plan apparently stemmed from a popular New Year’s Day tradition involving a dip into cold waters - a ritual that is popular in many countries.

“Two came to the mouth of the river, one from the north and one from the south, and they wanted to walk out and meet each other,” Baxman said.

Baxman estimated the water was about 6 feet deep in areas and said he believed the current was strong. At some point, the woman on the south side fell in the water. Seeing this, the woman on the north side rushed out of the river to seek help. She got to a phone to say her companion may have been swept away, the chief said.

She didn’t realize the woman on the south side had been pulled out by another friend. Those two women, in turn, then feared their friend on the north side had been swept away and they called for help, too, he said.

Murphy, stationed on the beach during the call, said the issue involved a bit of a language barrier and, at times, confusing information. “First we had one person definitely in the water. No, two people were (swept) out. Then it was one missing. It was going back and forth,” Murphy said.

Michael Porter, a Bodega Bay firefighter and state coast lifeguard, paddled out the mouth of the river on a longboard to get a sense of where a person may have been pulled by the current. The sea was rough and 8- to 10-foot waves were breaking on the beach, making a rescue or recovery difficult and dangerous, Murphy said.

With Porter in the water, the Coast Guard boat also was working offshore while the helicopter was using its high beam to search. A team of supervisors, including Baxman, Cal Fire officials and a lifeguard who’d come down from Salt Point State Park, gathered on a Jenner bluff with good visibility of the river’s mouth and the ocean.

At some point, they learned one of the women had gotten to shore and officials believed they were looking for just one person.

By about 8:30 p.m., it seemed unlikely anyone would have survived the cold and Baxman said they felt they were facing a body recovery effort. Coordinators began to reform their plan, and Baxman and others headed to a local business where friends of the supposedly missing women were waiting.

But there, it became clear everyone was accounted for. “The one missing was just getting out of the shower,” Baxman said.

The longtime fire chief said he then got the story on what had happened and had to ask why the women would want to go into the water on such a cold night.

“I said to one gal, ‘isn’t it cold?’ ” Baxman recalled. “She said, ‘This is nothing. In Moscow, it’s 20 below.’”

You can reach Staff Writer Randi Rossmann at?521-5412 or randi.rossmann@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter?@rossmannreport.