First responders likened the rescue of two people on Wednesday night by lifeguards at the icy ocean waters near California's Sunset Cliff to a miracle.
Faithwire reported that lifeguards responded to cries for help at nine in the evening of March 2 along the rough waters of the coastline. While Fox5 San Diego said the lifeguards saw a man and a woman in street clothes in the water near Froude and Osprey Streets pleading for help.
NBC San Diego stressed that the surf was so high the lifeguards could not use a boat to get the two out of the water but had to swim towards them. The responders had to use a harness and throw it into the rugged water below the cove area at Pappy's Point to pull out the victims. It didn't take long before they were successfully lifted into dry land. They were immediately handed over to the paramedics and firefighters who took them to Hillcrest's UCSD Medical Center due to minor injuries.
San Diego Fire-Rescue Battalion Chief Craig Newell called the rescue a miracle due to the condition and circumstances the two people were in that the lifeguards were subjected to. Newell highlighted that it is the "scariest and most treacherous rescues" among those he could recall.
"The surf is very large tonight. The water is very cold. This is winter time and it's dark. It's a miracle they were even found. They were heard by someone. Thank goodness the lifeguards were close from Mission Bay. They were able to make an initial water rescue and get them secured, get them up on the rocks and get them up and evaluated by firefighters and paramedics," Newell said.
Newell disclosed that the two victims, whose identities were withheld at the onset, are in their 20s and were dropped off in the surf with the instruction of swimming to the shore. They were dropped off by two separate jet skis that were calculated to have come from Tijuana, Mexico. Newell said the jet skis were not found. He said they also received reports on the possibility that more people were still in or around the water's southern part. A helicopter was then dispatched to locate the said people but none were found.
In line with this discovery on the smuggling of people into the United States by boat, Newell raised how "dangerous" such undertakings are and that the two victims were just "incredibly lucky to be alive tonight."
NBCS San Diego said border agents began the investigation on the two victims on Thursday.
The United States Customs and Border Protection said in its 2021 annual report that a total of 1.96 million migrants were apprehended at various ports of entry in the country. The majority of these apprehensions involved land encounters at the southern border, particularly in the areas of Del Rio, the Rio Grande Valley, and portions of the New Mexico to California desert, as well as, the waters of the Rio Grande.
Very few encounters involved migrants being apprehended in seaports, airports, and the northern border. Accordingly, the 2021 data was a few points higher than the 1.64 million apprehensions for the southern border in 2000 and 1.62 million in 1986.
Last September, the border crisis escalated in Texas' Rio Grande Valley when tens of thousands of migrants from Haiti crossed from Mexico through the waters of Del Rio. The migrants encamped under the Del Rio border bridge in makeshift tents, prompting the federal government to reinforce Title 42 and deport the migrants to their countries.
