Woman in Trouble on Beach at High Tide

On one particular day while we were staying at the Playa Serena in 2011, there was a large wind blowing. The water was very rough. I had actually never seen the swells so high in Gorgona before. They must have been about 10 feet high and the tide was on its way in.

As I stood on my balcony I watched a fairly large woman come down to the beach to lay in the sun. She put her large purse on the sand down by the foot of her lounge chair. She lay face up on the lounge chair. I watched her because I know the tide was coming in and I knew that she would lose her purse if she left it there.

I should mention that in Gorgona when the swells get high and the tide is coming in there are a series of riptides that run along the length of the beach about every 60 ft.

As I watched a large wave came in very close to her purse and she noticed this and moved her purse from the bottom of her lounge chair to the head of her lounge chair, again on the sand. At this time she turned over face down onto her lounger.

I continued to watch for about the next ten minutes as the tide continued to aggressively advance toward this woman. She was positioned about at the crest of where the high tide line normally would come to, and so I was not concerned for her safety but was sure that her purse would become a victim of the swells.

Sure enough a huge waves came in and engulfed her purse and proceeds to sweep it back out to sea. It moved along more slowly then i had anticipated but to be sure it was being carried out to sea. The woman must have noticed out of the corner of her eye the purse being taken, and was actually for the size of her, quite quick in responding. She jumped out of her charge and went running after her purse, reaching down on several occasions as she got, what she though was close enough to grab it, as it got caught in wave after wave approaching the beach and advancing forward. Of course it was making it's way out to the sea. All this was happening as i watched her get closer and closer the waters edge. My heart was caught in my throat as I watched what happened next.

This woman was not watching the waves and the ocean at all, she was so intent on retrieving her disappearing purse. As she approached the waters edge a large wave, twice her height came right over her and engulfed her. She was soon swept out to sea and caught in one of the riptides. I would see her bob and then she would disappear. Arms would flail and then nothing until a few seconds later when I would see her bob again. This went on for quite some time.

The security guard who was on duty at the Playa Serena saw what had happened and ran down the beach to try to rescue her. Also there where construction workers working on the tower next door, The Bijao, and about six of them ran down from the building to help. The security guard tried to jump in after her a couple of times but was caught in the riptide himself. Everyone on the beach watched in horror at what was unfolding in front of them. The problem was that the current was much too strong for any rescue attempts to be made safely.

The security guard managed to get thrown free of the riptide and made his way back to shore and stood there helpless to assist any further with the recovery of the woman. We watched the woman continually bob up, flail her arms and then disappear beneath surface once again only to resurface somewhere else a few seconds later. Eventually there was no more movement from the woman and then she bounced up face down and disappeared from view again. I knew she was done.

She bobbed up a couple of more times but by now we knew there was no response. She had drowned. Miraculous is what happened next.

The next wave came up and landed the woman on the beach on her back. The six construction workers and the security guard ran down and grabbed her before the next wave came in. She must have been about three hundred pounds and so they dragged her up the beach by her arms and upper body. as they dragged her she was bounced up and down because they were running to get her out of harms way when the next wave would come.

I am trained in CPR and so I ran down the stairs to assist in resuscitation. When I arrived at the scene the woman was already coughing and sputtering. It seems that the act of dragging her up the beach and with all of the bouncing the water had been forced out of her lungs and she was now breathing on her own. She was of course still concerned about her purse which was long gone and never was recovered. At that time I do not think she even realized the severity of what had happened and how she had actually drowned and been revived.

We learned later that this was her first day upon arriving in Panama. The U.S. Consulate was helpful in getting her paperwork that she needed to get her passport etc. There were several people in the building that helped her out with a place to stay until she could get another set of keys for the apartment she was staying in and with transportation and medical that she needed.

I will always remember the brave efforts of the security guard that day as he braved the strong currents to try and rescue her and the construction workers who valiantly pulled her from the brink of death and brought her back through their rough efforts of pulling her out of harms way.