Salt Point State Park fisherman swept out to sea

A Sacramento man who survived close to an hour in the frigid ocean after he was swept off the rocks while fishing with friends at Salt Point State Park on the North Sonoma Coast was fighting for his life Saturday, emergency responders said.

The unidentified 40-year-old man suffered severe hypothermia and was conscious but in poor shape when plucked from the ocean by a Coast Guard helicopter crew, authorities said. He was hospitalized in critical condition, the CHP said.

A Coast Guard officer credited the man’s friends with helping responders reach the remote scene and with supporting the victim - an amputee with only one arm - during a lengthy ordeal.

“They were hollering out at him to stay calm and just remain on his back - try to stay calm and float,” Coast Guard Petty Officer Travis Addison said, “and I think that really helped him, because he didn’t have a life jacket on or anything. They were able to coach him from shore.”

It was a cold, wet morning when the man and three friends positioned off the Salt Point Trail between Stump Beach and Gerstle Cove saw a large wave headed their way and turned to run up shore, away from it, Addison said.

When his friends turned around, they saw the man had been swept into the water and was being pulled out to sea, the petty officer said. Before he got too far away, his friends urged him to reserve his energy and try be still and float, Addison said.

The man would eventually drift at least 500 feet offshore, according to emergency responders.

One of his friends ran inland to a rocky outcropping to get cellphone reception and called for help around 8:12 a.m., prompting an all-hands-on-deck response that included personnel from state parks, Timber Cove Fire, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, Cal Fire and the U.S. Coast Guard, emergency personnel said.

Timber Cove Fire Chief Erich Lynn said the situation was challenging because crews at first were directed to the wrong location. Rain and poor visibility inland made it difficult to find a helicopter that could respond, he said

Eventually, a Coast Guard helicopter from San Francisco that already was in the air for training was diverted to Salt Point, said Petty Officer John Higgins, who was en route to the scene in a 47-foot motor-lifeboat.

The victim’s friends and a park ranger helped keep an eye on the man in the water, who lay motionless throughout, said the ranger, State Park Peace Officer Mason Harris.

A lifeguard, Scott Kwon, donned a wetsuit and swam ?200 to 250 yards out to the victim in water he judged to be about ?52 degrees.

When he got to the victim, the man was unable to speak or move, his muscles rigid from hypothermia.

Kwon got a rescue buoy over his head and had been planning to swim him ashore, but the Coast Guard helicopter arrived overhead and pulled the victim from the water.

The helicopter crew sent a rescue swimmer down at the end of a line, retrieved the victim and flew him to shore, where he was taken to a ground ambulance at Gerstle Cove. It took some time to stabilize him, given his severe condition, so he could be transferred to a CHP helicopter and flown to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

“It’s really hard on a human body to be in the water that long and have that type of hypothermia set in, plus he probably swallowed a good amount of salt water,” Lynn said.

The man, said Higgins, “is incredibly lucky, with the amount of time that he spent in the water, that he was not in worse shape.”