by Rachel Cross
All those years making meals for two, checking homework, cheering Emma on in life and sports; it all came to an abrupt end when Kate put Emma on the plane four weeks ago. Her sister, attending college three thousand miles away. Was it possible to have empty-nest syndrome at twenty-five?
The dog — Zack, according to his collar — was a welcome and familiar sight at this beach. While his owner surfed the break, Zack waited patiently with his tennis ball. Kate bent to pick up the soggy ball and pitched it into the waves. Zack retrieved it as she continued running. He chased her for a few steps, hopeful.
Some mornings Kate was so lost in her thoughts she wouldn’t have noticed if her path took her straight through a nude sunbathing area. But today everything distracted her, the blue gray of the Pacific, the pelicans diving in the wide gap between the two surfers waiting for waves, and the beauty of home.
Kate watched one of the surfers, Zack’s owner. She’d seen him numerous times on her runs, sitting, his board perfectly angled to see the incoming waves. Fall was calm, unlike winter when storms could bring waves twenty feet high to this part of the California coast. Growing up in Cielito, almost everyone surfed something at some point. Longboard, shortboard, bodyboard, stand up paddleboard — there was a board for everyone. She had spent countless hours surfing, swimming, and bodyboarding at this very beach. Now? Despite the heat her run generated, she gave a small shiver. The ocean was cold, even with a wetsuit. She’d take a heated swimming pool any day over that sixty-degree water.
The same two surfers were still in their spots as she made her way back down the beach. She threw the ball for Zack again and lifted a hand to his owner. He sat on his board waiting for the next set of waves, but he raised a hand in return.
She looked out to the other surfer, some fifty yards from Zack’s owner. Not there. Odd. He was there a second ago; his board was still there. She picked up her pace, staring intently at the space where the surfer should’ve been. Nothing. No one on the beach either. What the hell? Why was his surfboard still sitting, fins up, as if anchored …
Oh no. Oh my God.
Functioning solely on adrenaline, she raced to the water, barely pausing to toe off her shoes in the icy surf before running into the sea. Numb within seconds from the cold, she took one deep breath and plunged under the first breaking wave.
The sea was calm as she struck out for the board with a frantic freestyle stroke. Panic lent her speed. She reached the surfboard in moments. She took another deep breath — not easy since exhaustion from the run, coupled with the cold Pacific, left her damn near hyperventilating.
She dove into the murky water under the board, hands searching for and finding the flexible rubber tube, the leash, which normally attached a surfer to his board. She hoped and prayed it was still attached. She yanked it. Heavy. She followed the leash down, deeper until icy flesh brushed her fingers. His ankle. Thank God.
She grabbed for him, barely able to see his black clad body in the dark water. She ran her hands up his ankle, past his leg and hip, until she reached his chest. She wrapped one arm under his wetsuit-covered armpit, then kicked with all her strength, finally breaking the surface.
Gasping for breath, legs pumping, she struggled to pull the unconscious man’s limp head out of the water. He weighs a ton!
She looked up to see the other surfer, Zack’s owner, in front of her. He rolled off his board without a word, turned it upside down, fins up, draped the man’s arms over the board, and with considerable exertion, levered it up and over. The board flipped, distributing the unconscious man’s torso onto the middle of the board. He unleashed the man from his shorter inverted surfboard, which pitched on the waves. With the board in front of him, he started for shore, Kate in his wake. The dark-haired man fought the beach break, barely managing to keep the board upright. He grunted as he dragged the drowning victim off the board, then turned him face up, just beyond the water’s edge. Kate all but crawled out of the water on his heels. Muscles cramped from the cold, she hobbled over to the lifeless body. Every second counted with a drowning victim.
“I’m an RN,” she said, jaw clenched from nerves and cold.
“Can you handle this?” the surfer asked.
“Yes. But we need a phone to call nine-one-one.”
He glanced down the beach where a jogger was headed toward them. The surfer took off after him at a dead run.
Kate examined her patient from head to toe. He was young, really young. That made heart issues less likely. His wetsuit didn’t indicate damage to the material or blood, so whatever was wrong with him, it wasn’t a shark attack. She felt for a pulse and listened for breaths. He had a pulse. Good.
She adjusted his head to open his airway, listened and felt for breath. Nothing. She readjusted his head. Still nothing. With her lips to his she started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, her body moving on autopilot through the steps of breathing for him. She needed paramedics if this guy was going to have any chance, and she needed them now.
“Breathe, damn it!” She rechecked his pulse. Weak, but still there. That was something. She put air into his cold, still body. She looked up at the approach of the tall surfer. She could hear enough of his side of the conversation to realize he was communicating with the emergency dispatcher. He must’ve gotten a phone from that person down the beach.
“He’s still unconscious, unresponsive. I have a pulse but no respirations.” She breathed again. “How far out is the medic?” Even she could hear the frantic edge to her voice. Calm down. She rubbed wet hair out of her eyes and continued to work, the stillness interrupted only by the surfer’s terse responses to the nine-one-one dispatcher.
Finally, shrieking sirens broke through the quiet on the beach. She closed her eyes and ushered up thanks. When she opened them, she was gazing directly into the bright blue eyes of the neoprene-clad man kneeling across from her.
“I’d take over but … ”
“You can’t,” she said between breaths. “Unless you’re trained?”
“No. The dispatcher told me to let you handle it, until you become unable.”
She grimaced. “I’m able. God, they need to hurry!”
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