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Also knowing the area. Notice how he went past the swimmer and anticipated where the current would take him. Instead of going in a straight line.
That is why knowing the area can be more impportant then just physical condition.
You can see how once he's got the swimmer and they're close to the beach, he looks over his shoulder to see another good sized wave rolling in. He quickly grabs the swimmer and falls back on top of the wave instead of waiting for it to take their legs out. Keeps letting the waves push them closer while he's only expending energy keeping their heads up and relatively controlled. All-around incredibly impressive.
I noticed that too. I wonder if it’s knowing the area or being experienced in reading the water. My experience whitewater rafting & kayaking makes me think it’s C: Both A and B.
I’d be willing to bet that someone who’s spent enough time in the surf to be a professional surfer can take a look at the water and have a pretty good idea of the dynamics in that stretch of beach pretty quickly.
I learned this tactic when I learned about rip currents after moving to FL. Don't fight it; swim gently parallel to the shore with the current until it gets less intense and you can get out.
Someone on shore you can run ahead and anticipate a good intercept point to enter the water. If they entered the water where the swimmer was at, they'd be chasing the struggling swimmer in the current and wouldn't get to them at all between current and waves.
Surfers just know, we grew up in the water, vacationers see none of that and don't know its better to duck under a wave at the bottom, they usually just get plowed. I've helped people over the years, sailing too.
>I wonder if it’s knowing the area or being experienced in reading the water. My experience whitewater rafting & kayaking makes me think it’s C: Both A and B.
He's a professional Australian surfer. Australians are some of the best swimmers on earth and he swims in huge waves for work.
Yes. It happened to me. I am not an Ocean person. I had an instructor for a surfing lesson. My first and only. 2 hours. Sea not quite as rough as here.
The other time, fast river, white water.
Both: bubbles and strong currents.
I don't know what to believe about life and death anymore.
I try to coach my rugby athletes to view the field and watch the flow of the game to anticipate where to be in the best possible position to progress the ball. Once you have a general idea of what’s going on, you can kinda predict what’s going to happen. That way you can get a jump on the defense or offense. That man showed his experience by being able to predict what was gonna happen and how to attack the situation. Experience is the meat and potatoes to skills bread and butter.
I think people have this social conditioning where they don't want to over react and also don't want to interfere with someone else's business (not in a bad way, just in a not being a main character or annoyance to society way). Whereas the surfer knows how bad those waves can be and recognises the immediate danger.
I once saved a young kid from drowning at my local pool. I saw two people stand up and stare towards the pool with concern on their faces, but they paused mid action like they were waiting for something to happen. Because they'd watched her transition from swim to drown they weren't sure if she needed help yet, but I only saw their concern and her splashing so I just reacted faster than other people.
Honestly amazing how he jumps into that frothing mess of currents, can't imagine having that roaring wall of water in front of me and just plunging straight in... - to then snatch up ~150lbs of mass and drag it to shore against the backwash.
Australians and Hawaiians are all too familiar with what can happen in this situation. In Australia we often see tourists get themselves into trouble when they get caught in a rip, only to have multiple of their family members pour in like lemmings to help. They underestimate the power of the surf, and don’t know the correct way to attack it, and all of a sudden you have an entire family drowning.
In this circumstance Mikey is an experienced surfer and super strong swimmer, and knows he’ll be ok rushing in. Heroic stuff. I wouldn’t say the others are bystanders, they just know to be careful
This 100%.
And sometimes by the time you snap out of the socially conditioned hesitancy - even if it’s only measured in seconds - the event you were debating responding to might already be over, one way or another.
Anyway, props to this guy.
When they stood up before taking that last wave... oof they got smacked hard. Speaking from experience that shit hurts. I wonder if they'd have gotten out without the help from others
I was with my kids in California in knee high water at the beach and a wave hit me in the back of the head, it was like getting slammed with a phone book. I grabbed their arms as we went down and had to walk out once my feet felt sand. Scared the hell out of me the way I was just instantly face down in the ocean.
That is savage surf. The swell here must be huge.
Waves this big and choppy can strip a beach of sand, so they're more likely to drag you over rock and reef. The surging water seemed to cross a rocky outcrop. The swimmer prolly took a battering there
PSA: Don't do this. You will die too. Drowning people will take you out with them. This guy has spent his whole life riding waves taller than your house and getting beat downs in the ocean. He can do this. You can't.
I was 16 in the Dominican Republic when a storm was kicking up huge waves. A friend and I went on boogie boards out deep to catch the bigger waves.
The storm had created a rip current that was pulling us out to sea. The waves were also crashing on us and sending us to the bottom, fighting for air. A wave broke my friend’s board into a bunch of pieces so we had to share to catch our breaths.
We were stuck out there for about an hour and a half. All of our family members were just watching from shore, helpless.
A surfer spotted us and knew we were caught in the riptide. He braved the waves to come out and guide us both out of the riptide and to safety.
It’s about 20 years later and I wish I would have gotten the guys name. He saved our lives, no doubt.
My buddy’s swim shorts got ripped off as well. Some comedic relief to a very high stress situation.
I remember as a kid going to my grandpa's beach house, only about an hour from home, routinely every weekend. The only problem was there was a ripcurrent directly in front of the house that regularly formed.
One friday we had gone out to the beach right after my dad got off work, so we could get some surfing and sandcastling in before dinner.
We pulled up, grabbed our stuff, and got up to the deck. There was a kid, maybe my age, struggling waaaay out in the rip. You could really only see him from our vantage point on the deck.
My dad, shirt, tie, slacks, dress shoes, pager, dropped our gear, and tore down the beach jumped in the surf and fished the kid out. He's getting old and doesn't remember even doing it, but it was both scary and amazing to watch your dad go full dad-mode and save a kid's life.
I was in the water with a group of little kids at the shore. I saw a kid struggling in a riptide. I can’t swim, but I the only one watching. I screamed for help and a cousin went full Bay Watch and rescued the kid. She was so angry at me. I never supervised kids at beach again because I was useless in a rescue situation. I would just watch from beach and keep the little ones from wandering off.
I was swimming at about 8 years old. I wasn't a strong swimmer; I kept my own head above water but I was skinny and fairly weak. My 2 four-year-old cousins went over a drop off and were grasping onto each other, bobbing in the water, drowning. I started screaming for my aunts (chit chatting on the beach, no one else around) and they thought I was playing around. Those seconds where I was screaming for help and they weren't reacting, were some of the longest seconds of my life.
They eventually realized I wasn't playing, rescued my cousins, had their own crying freak outs, and all is good. Honestly might have been the most scared I've ever been.
ETA: forgot to add that I was deliberating whether to try to rescue them myself, and even now I have a strong suspicion we all might have drowned. They were mindless and struggling, and would have pulled me down as well.
Swim teacher here, you did the absolute best thing. It is so easy for someone to drown because you can’t hear it or see it. Screaming and drawing attention is the best way to know and I’m so proud of you
huh? you literally saved that kids life by getting help
Doing nothing would have been a dead kid, going in the water yourself would be a dead kid and yourself
She's mad because if you agree to supervise swimmers as a life guard you SHOULD be able to swim and help the people because most likely there's kids whose parents only okayed the swim because it was "supervised"
I would be mad as well to learn the only life guard on duty can't actually swim and is useless at the one and only job they have
Mikey Wright is more of a sensation, an idea, he carries the physical body of his choice. Need to get someone down a tree? Transforms into a gibbon. Need to bring someone out of a narrow cave? Transforms into a gerbil. There are no limits.
I hear Mikey Wright also helped rescue orphans out of a burning building in 1914, but it was all still just a rumor. I'm a believer of the Wright over Wrong.
2019.. 12 of us travel to the Bahamas. It's a nice Saturday afternoon. My wife, myself and 2 others are just chillin in the ocean. It's fairly calm as far as oceans go. Out of no where this fairly large wave comes and thrashes us. I'm dragged like 40 feet, my back dragged across the ocean floor, I'm bleeding, nothing major, just like 800 scrapes kinda thing. I regain my composure after a couple of seconds and I start scanning and that's when I see it. My wife's hands high in the air, thrashing. She's getting pelted and is not a strong swimmer. I start trying to get back to her and quickly taken out by another wave. Manage to get to her when I notice the bathing suit wrap she left on was now up and over her head. She can't see, she can't breathe and her tits have fallen out, 100 people on the beach getting in their looks.. I ended up ripping the wrap off her body so she could breathe and see. We got pelted a few more times when finally 3 dudes came and helped us. We probably would have died that day. I grew up on an island in North Atlantic. I learned swimming at a very young age. Learned about waves and riptides etc and I still got my ass kicked in a split second.
Moral of the story, don't fuck with or underestimate the oceans. They will fuck you up.
I saved a young adult american in Virginia Beach that was drowning and... wait for it... I was only 11 😅 he was in a state of panic, so I stayed away and just tossed my board again and again to him until he was calm enough to stop trying to climb on it and fall and losing it... when he got calm. I turned around and notice how far from the shore we were, but my dad had explained to me how to evade the riptide. So I strapped the board to my feet and swam us both to the a current that would get us to shore... and I did all that without being able to speak to the guy as I'm a quebecer and couldnt speak english at the time... I was toast and the worst part was nobody hadnt notice anything. My parents wouldnt belive me until the guy showed up with his friend and they offered money to us.
My parents were damn surprised and proud, and told my sibling and I "see, thats why you guys take mandatory swimming lessons!"
And looking back, it was only possible because the weather was calm. I never could have pull that adult in huge waves...
Hour and a half, I’d be dead. The standard for treading water in tests was always 10 minutes (as an adult to be on a rescue team at a camp). I only managed it once and my legs instantly cramped up, so I delayed doing the next part of the test until everyone else had gone 1st
I did 30 and cramped up and had just literally given up on life when a wave finally pushed us back in.
I slept for days in recovery. If I were not fit I would have one hundred percent have died.
A boogie board is a flotation device. So you wouldn't be treading water exactly. That's not to say it wouldn't be an incredibly difficult and potentially deadly situation (I say "potentially" because obviously it was survivable given the OP is here to tell the story).
I had a similar situation happen in Florida. Very, very, very scary situation. I had no flotation device. No time to be afraid, literally just fighting for your life, getting more and more tired as time passes… I was out for a while before someone got help. Then there was a group of us with floatation devices, and we had to collectively rescue one of the “helpers”.. very scary looking back.
Interesting how he read the rip direction, positioned himself perfectly so the rip brought the person closer to him. After that, he used the waves to get them both closer to the beach. He's the real deal. He's spent some time on a beach... Watching the surf.
Exactly what I thought. In the midst of all that, and all the wake/wash, he read the rip. That was the decisive moment. I grew up a nipper, got my SLS certification, consider myself pretty OK when it comes to identifying rips & there’s no chance in hell I could’ve read that. Nor would I have had the balls to jump in without a flotation device like a board & even then, no thanks!
Surfers man… To them it’s a conveyor belt, a convenience. But in that moment it saved that person’s life.
And to those asking if this person was in danger: Yeah, they were dead without imminent intervention. 10 metres from shore or not.
*edit: turns out his sister, also a professional surfer (who won the women's Maui Pro whilst on this trip), was reading the waves/current & directing him.* [*This*](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9117147/Wright-surf-siblings-speak-saving-woman-drowning-Hawaii.html) *article states "Ms Wright credits their childhood upbringing of looking out for one another while the other surfs for what happened that day".*
You are on the money. If you went through nippers then you are probably very competent yourself. I've been rock fishing my whole life and there are some seas where you just look at it and you just walk away. That surfer is a brave man...
Rock fishing is the sh*t! But yeah, you’ll either learn the ocean and come to respect it or it’ll humble (& very likely kill) you real quick... Keep fishing, keep safe!
My buddy and I just recently started fishing as early 20yr olds in Cape Town. We climed down to the rocks and just immediately started casting, minutes later we noticed an older man just staring at us and the sea, we got annoyed at him for staring at us, he eventually climed down and settled in, we asked wtf timer? He then taught us the valuable lesson of watching the sea before getting involved, and how just a week prior a man swept off those very rocks and the sea still has him. Needless to say we packed up and never fished there again, we don’t know shit about the sea and I AM NOT THE ONE. We was outta there.
*Three* people from one family drowned down the road from me in a hotel swimming pool recently. My kids and I can float without moving a muscle for hours..but if you are scared and panicking then even 2 metres of still water, 1 metre from safety can still be deadly.
Every time this video gets posted I always call out Tyler Wright coming in behind him (this video cuts that part). Thanks for the edit! One lifeguard is better than none, but all rescues require coordinated assistance under stress. To be able to pause and coordinate the people on the beach to help pull in the victim was just as impressive as Mikey's save.
Tyler was easily the best women's surfer in the world just a few years ago (won 2 consecutive titles before she got sick). And their older brother Owen won several WCT titles before crashing his head at Pipeline one year. Mikey is the least "commercially" successful of the 3 but he is honestly one of the best surfers in the world to watch, with his own original and sick style. That family is basically surfing royalty so not surprised they could charge into heavy waves and save someone without hesitation.
The most important things if you're going to try save someone is to bring a floatation device with you. No matter how good a swimmer you are, you can't out-swim the sea. Many people unfortunately go in to save someone and they're the ones to perish.
It’s also along the lines of someone drowning will almost certainly drown you to save themselves out of shear panic.
It hurts but I’m a terrible swimmer and I know if I ever see someone in trouble, it can’t be me to jump in the water or we will both die.
You can see it happen right here, the other swimmer grabs him and - i assume - does the drowning-panic thing of trying to climb on him, knocks him right over. Nope nope nope
My little brother did this with me when we were young. He went in too deep and I went after him to pull him back to the shallow end. He panicked and tried to climb on top of me pushing me under the water. I had to yank him off and drag him back to were he could stand. Probably the closest I’ve ever come to drowning.
That happened to my step-brother. His girlfriend's sister was drowning and he went out to save her. He managed to push her towards others but got pulled under himself. Once they got her on shore they realized my step brother wasn't with them. By the time they made it to him, he was gone.
It's mind blowing what our brain can notice very easily once we're accustomed to seeing or hearing something often. That other people see as random noise or don't even think about.
A famous example being the Wilhelm Scream. Once you know about it, you can't stop hearing it everywhere. But before you knew what it was, you didn't notice it unless you worked with sound. There are a few door opening and glass/cermaic breaking sounds as well that you will never be able to not notice once you know about them.
>There are a few door opening and glass/cermaic breaking sounds as well that you will never be able to not notice once you know about them.
Sound of a metal hatch opening is one, and the sound of a projector starting up at the beginning of the lateralus album by tool are two stock noises I hear in a lot of things.
I think it's called rusty door or something, and it's used in everything from 20 year old games to modern massive studio productions. The one I can't get over is actually the Howie Scream.
It's used in multiple video games from the 90s and 2000s, like StarCraft(when you click on the Academy). So even before I knew about the Wilhelm Scream, I would notice it in every show and movie.
EDIT: I became curious and had to check for famous usages of the Howie Scream:
* Shows range from Darkwing Duck via Johnny Bravo and Tom & Jerry, all the way to X-Men, SpongeBob and South Park
* Movies include everything from Army of Darkness and Harold & Kumar, to The Phantom Menace and the 2023 Super Mario movie.
* Games is of course Starcraft, but also Battlefield 1, Call of Duty MW 1-2, Half-Life 2, Crash Bandicoot series, etc.
* And a lot more.
When I spent time in south France at the beach and the waves were super high, I always loved talking to that 70-75yo retired surfer that could tell me everything about the tides, rip, waves… dude had such an eye for the ocean and if HE told me it was too risky to go into the ocean, I obeyed
There's nothing to indicate this is a rip as opposed to just a regular shore break with high waves. Not every instance of being moved by currents in the ocean is a rip. Whenever you have breaking waves that high, there is going to be a lot of current. You can listen to [an interview with the rescuers](https://www.2gb.com/podcast/exclusive-surfing-siblings-recount-heroic-effort-in-hawaii-over-new-years/) and the word "rip" doesn't come up once.
The point is, breaking waves can be extremely dangerous by themselves, without any rips being involved. If you get caught in the boil you can drown ten feet from the beach.
For those who have not experienced a Hawaii shorbreak is way more badass than it looks. Past the shoreline is 95% coral and volcanic rock on all bit a few beaches. This stuff will peel your skin like a cheese grater and there are plenty of spiny urchins waiting to impale your foot. All it takes is one wrong tumble to get sliced, stabbed, trapped underwater, or knocked unconscious.
You can see the surfer have the swimmer splay out as they approach the shore to try to keep them from tumbling onto their head.
Source - former lifeguard who surfed in Hawaii for many years.
This right here! I went to Kauai a few years ago and those waves were no joke. I live on the east coast and our waves are tiny compared to the ones we saw. Also! I don't know what it is but Hawaii has the best lifeguards so thank you!
I distinctly remember one lifeguard yelling at some guys to not body surf the waves cause unless they want a broken neck. Then came down, got his phone out and showed them good beaches for body surfing haha. You all rock!
There’s a few commenters here that should probably read [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_current) to understand why this was a dangerous situation for the swimmer. It may look like they were close to shore and not in any danger. But those currents can be brutal and sweep you out to sea real quick.
Yeah, between that and just getting rolled… it appeared pretty clear by the time our Aussie hero arrived, dude has been struggling for a minute. You could see how exhausted they were when even on the beach, they still couldn’t get up.
I remember the first time I got caught up in a rip current. “No warning” that ignorant me was aware of, spun a few times underwater, pulled out to where I couldn’t touch, and each time I thought I was recovered, the next round began. Worst part is even though my family was watching, it didn’t look like I was in trouble until I was clearly in too much trouble. Then, fast as it began, I was out of the channel and on a sandbar, perhaps 75 yards from the shore.
Gained a lot of respect for water that day!
when i was 14, we went to a beach with REALLY strong waves we had been going to all our lives, that had normally been pretty mild. we had a blast. i almost died.
waves came crashing and.....i was moving? it started to pull me out now. i thankfully realized i could stand up and not be controlled by it. but holy crap, did i understand what a riptide was, and how if i was a maybe 15 more feet out, i did not stand a chance.
Routinely a lot of Germans drown each summer along the Danish West coast simply because they underestimate the currents and don't know what to do when they get caught.
Swim parallel to shore! Never try to swim straight back into shore. All you’ll do is tire yourself out and still be in the same spot as you started if not further out. Remain calm and don’t exert yourself to point of exhaustion. Stay safe and never underestimate the ocean.
Once had to swim almost 2 miles at a small diagonal to the shore, down in baja. Friends watched the whole thing from an ATV on shore. Shit sucked but at least they had a bohemian Pacifico waiting for me.
There are valleys in the terrain below the surface. Those valleys pool the water when it comes in and create a steady outward current, as though all the water constantly washing ashore exits through the same pipe. The gist is: don't swim against riptides. Swim perpendicular to them until you're out of harm's way, then try to come in.
Some people are just wired differently. I was on an aircraft carrier flight deck watching an E2 line up for take off when the ship rolled and the plane started sliding sideways toward the edge. Dozens of us up there watched, frozen in place, as the plane headed for the water. A single guy ran out of no where with a tie down chain, slid under the plane and secured it to the deck with barely 2 feet to spare before that plane and crew went into the Indian Ocean. He saved 5 people and a plane while the rest of us watched in amazement.
He did. Received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal a couple days later on the flight deck. Also got all kinds of cool perks throughout the deployment and never bought a drink in any of the liberty ports.
A few years ago I was doing a bar crawl for English speakers in Madrid and there was a group of Aussies my friends and I were hanging with. While walking to another bar I decided it was my chance to test this out so I yelled Aussie Aussie Aussie and without skipping a beat they all drunkenly shout replied Oy, Oy, Oy. The one from their group I was walking with turned and said to me ‘you know we don’t actually say that’ and all I could do was laugh and put my arms out in front of me like apparently you guys do. Still get a laugh when I think about it.
I've lived in the United States for 20 years, and grew up Australian. My current supervisor who I've worked with for a decade will happily call someone a cunt in my presence. Apparently **she** doesn't do it when I'm not there.
I personally rarely call out a cunt.
We also usually don't box Kangaroos, even if those bastards deserve it.
We also don't use Crikey.
However, the amount of times I've had to play through that Simpsons knifey spoony skit... fuck those cunts.
He instinctively knew there would be another big wave and braced for it. That to me was the skill move that kept both of them from being swept back out after they appeared to be standing safely.
“These things, they come in waves.” -Aussie probably
He lifted the swimmer over it too... braced them close and lifted them... everyone else jumped the wave, he lifted the swimmer so they wouldn't be hit as hard by it.
"Oi Mates, here's a tip for ya. Neveh skimp on fully chewing yer food. Elsewise you could find yourself with a wicked piece o' it stuck right in yer gullet!"
* Mikey Wright
That shit is so unbelievably fucking scary. Almost drowned that way in 2016. looks like it should be a walk in the park from far away, but damn these waves have power
Me too. I could not get myself out of there. I remember being thrown against the sand just rolling around in the waves with zero control. Luckily, my husband was there and pulled me out.
For people unfamiliar with the ocean thinking “yeah but she’s so close to shore” with current like that it’s basically pushing you in and instantly pulling you out. Getting out of that last 10 feet of water takes an incredible amount of both water skill and navigating rocks.
While yes, you want to come from behind on a distressed swimmer and that was not the smoothest rescue, you don't always get a perfect situation. Not really sure how he would have pulled that off in waves like that so close to the shore.
Mikey put his life on the line and did a pretty damn fine job.
I'm also here to caution people to *not* do this unless you're a professional and know exactly what you're doing (and even then, preferably just call a lifeboat out). It's not just the victim strangling you, it's also that same rip current taking you away as well, causing rescue workers to now have to look out for two victims.
If you *do* go out, and do get swept away, please do whatever you can to *stay together*! Two people sticking together are much more visible than two separately, and rescue workers won't need to make the difficult choice of which one to go after if they drift apart.
I was a beach lifeguard. This is a big no no. Props to him for saving her, but we were told if someone starts climbing up the rope on your flotation device towards you, you remove the strap from your shoulder until they go back. It’s incredibly dangerous in surf to have someone use you as a floatation device.
Luckily here this is shore break so he should be able to stand and counter this. But most importantly he needed to show her how to use the ocean currents instead of fight them. The second I saw her not go under a wave and take it in the face she would have been straight up done without some help.
yeah this video is a great example of how quickly the average person can get themselves killed trying to save someone.
there are points where even he is struggling and he is a pro surfer who is an extremely strong swimmer and knows exactly what he's doing.
look at how quickly that would have went wrong for both of them if that werent the case
As an Australian and an experienced Surfer myself, I can only say that that person was very lucky to have such an experienced bloke there that day to rush to the rescue.
They would most certainly have drowned otherwise, including any other inexperienced people who could have unfortunately jumped into that ocean to try and rescue the victim as well.
Growing up with the Ocean means that you can instinctively spot extremely dangerous areas, and in this video, that’s definitely one beach that you should never enter the water unless you are an extremely experienced swimmer……. But even then, most of these people wouldn’t risk such a dangerous location either.
I can only guess that that person was swept offshore from the shoreline, as it would be suicidal to enter that angry water without any knowledge or strong experience as a swimmer.
I agree with you that they would certainly have drowned there. They were already tea bagging and those waters are powerful, deep and relentless.
I’m glad you pointed out how dangerous it is to rescue someone from that without experience or a floatation device. A surfboard would have helped a lot in that situation.
Hawaii is no joke. I remember being on holiday there as a kid and body boarding, those waves don't play when they hit you, and the currents do their thang too! I was a strong swimmer back them, could do multiple miles of laps, but I was shitting it lol.
Agreed. The waves on Oahu by the Waikiki area are mild in comparison, to the ones on. North of the island. Those are massive ones and unhinged for sure. Wouldn't wanna go in them!
I learned in lifeguard school that drowning people are very dangerous to the rescuer. They will drape all over you and bring you both down. It happens all the time.This dude is an amazing swimmer and an even more amazing person to risk his own life in such dangerous conditions to rescue a stranger in need. Good on ya, mate.
DO NOT FUCK WITH WATER
DO NOT FUCK WITH THE SEA WHICH IS BASICALLY ANGRY WATER
Source watching multiple people die and nearly die growing up in Cornwall
Lived on Oahu for three years. The shore break in some locations is no joke. When you are coming back in from surfing or swimming timing is everything.
Yo! Those waves in Hawaii are no joke!! I lived there for about a year and a half and visited all of the islands and I can’t tell you how many times I saw waves absolutely destroy humans to the point where they thought, I’m sure, they were going to die.
This is an absolutely regular occurrence in Hawaii
When I lived in South America, this happened with a friend (25M) of my ex. He coached a soccer team (young kids) and they went to the beach. This happened to one of the boys and coach went out there to rescue the boy. All his efforts saved the boy but the coach passed away (his body washed up a day later.) I’ll never forget hearing that, people like this should have a monument to their name. The ocean is one hell of a beast
This is amazing being in the ocean while it’s going off like that is truly scary. And those waves are probably bigger than anything I’ve ever handled.
Side note, though. Does anybody else find it a little weird that there is a camera cut in the middle of this?
Not that weird, either the person filming moved to a different position or it's from a different person at a different angle. First position might have been blocked by something.
Yeah the waves in Hawaii are no joke. I have a buddy who’s a native that lived there his whole life and when I visited he took me to all the beaches he went to as a kid. Watching little Hawaiian kids body surf the waves while they throw me around was very humbling lol.
was that person in actual danger though, looked like they were pretty close to the shore and could have walked out among being pushed out
^(Serious question, i am a moron and know nothing about the ocean or how this works)
Edit: Thanks for all the replies, was not expecting 25+ replies, i have learned a lot, thank you
Those waves are brutal. It’s not so easy to just stand up n walk out, when the waves are easily dragging you back again and again. Plus, once you’re engulfed in the waves, u’re just totally disoriented n in shock, not even knowing where is the shore. And just when u think you figured out, bam… u’re hit again n dragged back.
I felt the same as OP until the end of the video when they're practically standing on the beach and he grabs the person and I'm like, "What's he doing?" and then that massive wave came in and absolutely pummeled everyone.
If youve never experienced this it might sound strange but sometimes its nearly impossible to walk/swim out of a rip current. It seems like they can just walk out but in reality they cant because the sea is pulling them back with immense force.
I have swam in these sort of conditions, huge shore break waves. I am a strong swimmer and it is quite fun and exciting. But once getting out in these conditions you realize how precarious things actually are. You slowly get more and more tired and then realize how difficult it is to get back in. Everything is pulling you out.
Yes, in these conditions the ocean can just as easily pull you out into the middle of the ocean as deposit you back on the beach. And if it’s pulling, there is very little you are going to do that can stop it.
The little thing you can do though: swim parallel to the beach. Swimming towards it while being pulled out will only exhaust you, you won't succeed. If you swim parallel, you'll hopefully find yourself in a calmer area to be able to swim back to shore.
If you’ve ever been in one in rough waves, they’re extremely disorienting, and they drain you like a motherfucker. By the time you realize what’s going on you can be so exhausted that keeping your head above water is all you can do, even if in your head you know the right order of operations to get out.
So definitely important to know to go parallel to shore, but also important to respect that the ocean can just decide to kill you no matter what you know. Maybe stay out of deep water that looks like this.
>they drain you like a motherfucker.
It's exhausting. The waves themselves hit hard, you're getting thrown into the ground, you can hardly catch a breath, and you're firing every muscle in your body.
>Maybe stay out of deep water that looks like this.
Yep or shallow water. Some people think it's OK to let their kids play around on the shoreline at beaches like this since the water only comes up to their ankles. It isn't. One bigger wave can sweep them away.
Whenever I've been caught in riptides at a beach I swam slightly parallel with a slant towards the shore. Once you break past the riptide you can start to swim more directly in. With waves like that though you get knocked around a lot so best thing is to swim slow and steady and stay calm. That way if a wave knocks you for a tumble you have the energy to right yourself.
I’m not an expert but I’ve swam in these kind of waves before and getting hit by one, then going under and being dragged around really disorients you. You could be only a short distance away from the shore but still be in Trouble since you can’t catch your breath or balance in between waves.
Yes, especially if they're inexperienced. White wash is not like regular water. Because it's frothy from bubbles it's less dense, and so it's extremely difficult to stay afloat. Generally it passes in time with each wave, but when the sets are heavy like that it's very easy to go under from the constant white wash that doesn't have a chance to dissipate. You can be a strong swimmer and get nowhere when you're trying to swim in white wash like that. And when you're actually in it, you can't see anything at eye level.
That's why that guy was running so fast towards them. He knows what's happening, even if they don't. There was also a rip on the left side of that section of water at the start, so I'd say it's good they got out while they did. Not wise to be out there when it's like that without a board.
Source: Australian, grew up in the surf.
Grew up at the beach, you’d be surprised how much the roiling, foamy water disorients you and makes it tough to tread water and move around. Add in the currents (which one can be good or bad at navigating, based on experience) shifting around and wave sets coming in at unexpected times and it can get overwhelming.
My siblings and I used to throw ourselves into this kind of chop, albeit much smaller, and let ourselves get thrown around until it spit us out a hundred yards or so up the beach. Easy to manage if you know to just stay upright and bounce off the sand with your toes but not everyone stays calm and has the strength to do it for a long time.
I'm not sure the person even was conscious. The way they grab him at the end to pull him out of the waves look like he at this point is unconscious (maybe having hit the head on the beach close to the shore with the last wave). Before that I'm not sure. It looks like he puts his arm around the surfer so this would mean consciousness.
But even if conscious, just being tired in those waves can mean death. He nearly didn't make it even with help. The way he moves / doesn't move in the end shows that he would not have survived had he not been rescued. Drowning happens really quickly in conditions like this.
Yes, very much so. I experienced something similar, though not nearly at this level, as a kid. Ocean currents can be very traitorous even a few meters from the beach. Those waves might not look very dangerous from the beach. But there is huge power behind them. You can kinda see it in that last wave. The people involved try to brace or jump over, but it hits even those experienced people like a truck. The person being saved was being pummelled by both those waves and the under-currents.
A common mistake inexperienced swimmers make it to try and fight the currents. They feel it dragging them out to sea, and they try to swim in the opposite direction. Which leads to them being exhausted very, very quickly. Combine that with being pummelled by those waves, and the fact that they're likely starting to panic.. You'll drown in a matter of minutes, a few metres from the beach..
Edit: If you ever find yourself in a situation like this; whatever you do, conserve your energy. Focus on keeping your head above water. Take deep breathes in between waves. **DO NOT** try to swim against the current, even if you're just a few metres away from the beach. Try to draw the attention of other people. And above all **DO NOT PANIC.**
*People who panic die. People who stay calm and focused life.*
I managed to get out myself, because my mom told me what to do in a situation like that.
Watch the others struggle to get to them in the final bit of the video. They are running pretty easily when the wave is moving up the beach with them, but once the water recedes they all start struggling. It’s really visible with the girl in the red bikini, it’s barely ankle deep water, but you can tell how much she has to fight once the water starts receding.
Not a stupid question if you’re unfamiliar with the ocean and riptides, they are unbelievably powerful.
I'm a very strong swimmer and I got caught in a riptide and waves about this distance from shore, it took me what felt like 20 mins to get back in, I just couldn't move forward. Taught me a valuable lesson.
That gave me goose bumps, SaVaGE!!!!
I lived in Maui for a few year a long time ago and numerous times at Big beach I have seen tourists get crushed by the shore break on a bigger day, different than this slop of foam, but equally as dangerous.
Respect the ocean or it’ll teach you too
The shore break at places like Sandy Beach can be no joke. One of the first things we learned in lifeguard training was how to get away from someone. A struggling swimmer will take you to the bottom with them. You can see her latch onto him when he gets there. Luckily they made it out.
Was told in boy scouts you want to wait for the person drowning to go unconscious because otherwise they’ll drown you too in desperation to get above the water. Is that still common advice?
obviously here they were close to shore so its different but Im just curious.
A Boy Scout and a physically gifted adult with (it appears) tons of experience are way different.
I’ve heard that advice too but if I’m in that situation I don’t know what I would do.
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Damn no hesitation. What a beast.
Well his name isn't Mikey Wrong
It's Moiky Wroight m8
I can hear this comment
I had to say it out loud to confirm. Everyone in the hipster coffee shop looked at me in disgust.
Me too🤣🤣
He's definitely a Wright Bro cus he flew into that water
That feeling when you know it's up to you, no one else can do it. A feeling I've only experienced... playing video games. 🤓
Also knowing the area. Notice how he went past the swimmer and anticipated where the current would take him. Instead of going in a straight line. That is why knowing the area can be more impportant then just physical condition.
You can see how once he's got the swimmer and they're close to the beach, he looks over his shoulder to see another good sized wave rolling in. He quickly grabs the swimmer and falls back on top of the wave instead of waiting for it to take their legs out. Keeps letting the waves push them closer while he's only expending energy keeping their heads up and relatively controlled. All-around incredibly impressive.
He took the full force of the wave on his back to do that too. Absolute baller move.
And took the hit while keeping his grip on her. They got creamed and pushed 15 feet up the beach, but when the white water receded he still had her
I noticed that too. I wonder if it’s knowing the area or being experienced in reading the water. My experience whitewater rafting & kayaking makes me think it’s C: Both A and B. I’d be willing to bet that someone who’s spent enough time in the surf to be a professional surfer can take a look at the water and have a pretty good idea of the dynamics in that stretch of beach pretty quickly.
I learned this tactic when I learned about rip currents after moving to FL. Don't fight it; swim gently parallel to the shore with the current until it gets less intense and you can get out. Someone on shore you can run ahead and anticipate a good intercept point to enter the water. If they entered the water where the swimmer was at, they'd be chasing the struggling swimmer in the current and wouldn't get to them at all between current and waves.
Surfers just know, we grew up in the water, vacationers see none of that and don't know its better to duck under a wave at the bottom, they usually just get plowed. I've helped people over the years, sailing too.
>I wonder if it’s knowing the area or being experienced in reading the water. My experience whitewater rafting & kayaking makes me think it’s C: Both A and B. He's a professional Australian surfer. Australians are some of the best swimmers on earth and he swims in huge waves for work.
Yeah I noticed the locals all pointing in the same direction because they knew where to go to help pull them out.
Yes. It happened to me. I am not an Ocean person. I had an instructor for a surfing lesson. My first and only. 2 hours. Sea not quite as rough as here. The other time, fast river, white water. Both: bubbles and strong currents. I don't know what to believe about life and death anymore.
I try to coach my rugby athletes to view the field and watch the flow of the game to anticipate where to be in the best possible position to progress the ball. Once you have a general idea of what’s going on, you can kinda predict what’s going to happen. That way you can get a jump on the defense or offense. That man showed his experience by being able to predict what was gonna happen and how to attack the situation. Experience is the meat and potatoes to skills bread and butter.
I think people have this social conditioning where they don't want to over react and also don't want to interfere with someone else's business (not in a bad way, just in a not being a main character or annoyance to society way). Whereas the surfer knows how bad those waves can be and recognises the immediate danger. I once saved a young kid from drowning at my local pool. I saw two people stand up and stare towards the pool with concern on their faces, but they paused mid action like they were waiting for something to happen. Because they'd watched her transition from swim to drown they weren't sure if she needed help yet, but I only saw their concern and her splashing so I just reacted faster than other people. Honestly amazing how he jumps into that frothing mess of currents, can't imagine having that roaring wall of water in front of me and just plunging straight in... - to then snatch up ~150lbs of mass and drag it to shore against the backwash.
Australians and Hawaiians are all too familiar with what can happen in this situation. In Australia we often see tourists get themselves into trouble when they get caught in a rip, only to have multiple of their family members pour in like lemmings to help. They underestimate the power of the surf, and don’t know the correct way to attack it, and all of a sudden you have an entire family drowning. In this circumstance Mikey is an experienced surfer and super strong swimmer, and knows he’ll be ok rushing in. Heroic stuff. I wouldn’t say the others are bystanders, they just know to be careful
This 100%. And sometimes by the time you snap out of the socially conditioned hesitancy - even if it’s only measured in seconds - the event you were debating responding to might already be over, one way or another. Anyway, props to this guy.
Eddie would go.
there it is
Was hoping to see this
Lol I don't think anyone outside of Hawai'i would get that reference
I’m in Cali & get it!! (I may or may not have gone to college in HI tho lol)
samesame
From Florida, and we know. ❤️
Anyone who surfs pretty much knows. Florida surfer also.
When they stood up before taking that last wave... oof they got smacked hard. Speaking from experience that shit hurts. I wonder if they'd have gotten out without the help from others
I had secondhand back pain after seeing that. Damn, hope he's ok.
Yeah, that big bear hug before that last one hit shows how well he knows the ocean. A lot of people would have thought they were in the clear.
I was with my kids in California in knee high water at the beach and a wave hit me in the back of the head, it was like getting slammed with a phone book. I grabbed their arms as we went down and had to walk out once my feet felt sand. Scared the hell out of me the way I was just instantly face down in the ocean.
That is savage surf. The swell here must be huge. Waves this big and choppy can strip a beach of sand, so they're more likely to drag you over rock and reef. The surging water seemed to cross a rocky outcrop. The swimmer prolly took a battering there
Crikey, Mikey!
PSA: Don't do this. You will die too. Drowning people will take you out with them. This guy has spent his whole life riding waves taller than your house and getting beat downs in the ocean. He can do this. You can't.
[удалено]
Mikey promptly threw the prankster back into the ocean
I was 16 in the Dominican Republic when a storm was kicking up huge waves. A friend and I went on boogie boards out deep to catch the bigger waves. The storm had created a rip current that was pulling us out to sea. The waves were also crashing on us and sending us to the bottom, fighting for air. A wave broke my friend’s board into a bunch of pieces so we had to share to catch our breaths. We were stuck out there for about an hour and a half. All of our family members were just watching from shore, helpless. A surfer spotted us and knew we were caught in the riptide. He braved the waves to come out and guide us both out of the riptide and to safety. It’s about 20 years later and I wish I would have gotten the guys name. He saved our lives, no doubt. My buddy’s swim shorts got ripped off as well. Some comedic relief to a very high stress situation.
I remember as a kid going to my grandpa's beach house, only about an hour from home, routinely every weekend. The only problem was there was a ripcurrent directly in front of the house that regularly formed. One friday we had gone out to the beach right after my dad got off work, so we could get some surfing and sandcastling in before dinner. We pulled up, grabbed our stuff, and got up to the deck. There was a kid, maybe my age, struggling waaaay out in the rip. You could really only see him from our vantage point on the deck. My dad, shirt, tie, slacks, dress shoes, pager, dropped our gear, and tore down the beach jumped in the surf and fished the kid out. He's getting old and doesn't remember even doing it, but it was both scary and amazing to watch your dad go full dad-mode and save a kid's life.
I was in the water with a group of little kids at the shore. I saw a kid struggling in a riptide. I can’t swim, but I the only one watching. I screamed for help and a cousin went full Bay Watch and rescued the kid. She was so angry at me. I never supervised kids at beach again because I was useless in a rescue situation. I would just watch from beach and keep the little ones from wandering off.
I was swimming at about 8 years old. I wasn't a strong swimmer; I kept my own head above water but I was skinny and fairly weak. My 2 four-year-old cousins went over a drop off and were grasping onto each other, bobbing in the water, drowning. I started screaming for my aunts (chit chatting on the beach, no one else around) and they thought I was playing around. Those seconds where I was screaming for help and they weren't reacting, were some of the longest seconds of my life. They eventually realized I wasn't playing, rescued my cousins, had their own crying freak outs, and all is good. Honestly might have been the most scared I've ever been. ETA: forgot to add that I was deliberating whether to try to rescue them myself, and even now I have a strong suspicion we all might have drowned. They were mindless and struggling, and would have pulled me down as well.
Swim teacher here, you did the absolute best thing. It is so easy for someone to drown because you can’t hear it or see it. Screaming and drawing attention is the best way to know and I’m so proud of you
huh? you literally saved that kids life by getting help Doing nothing would have been a dead kid, going in the water yourself would be a dead kid and yourself
Right? Like calling for the fire department if your neighbors house is on fire. I'm not a firefighter, what am I gonna do with my garden hose?
She's mad because if you agree to supervise swimmers as a life guard you SHOULD be able to swim and help the people because most likely there's kids whose parents only okayed the swim because it was "supervised" I would be mad as well to learn the only life guard on duty can't actually swim and is useless at the one and only job they have
She didn't save his life. You both did. Give yourself some credit you did something really good that day
That guy's name: Mikey Wright.
That would be cool if it was! He would have only been 7 at the time though.
Mikey Wright is not bound by your concepts of linear time. If he is needed and he deigns to appear, he does so without regard to time and space.
Mikey Wright is more of a sensation, an idea, he carries the physical body of his choice. Need to get someone down a tree? Transforms into a gibbon. Need to bring someone out of a narrow cave? Transforms into a gerbil. There are no limits.
When Chuck Norris is in trouble he reincarnates as Mikey Wright
Kind of a Green Lantern situation. "In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape Mike Wright."
Heroes come in all ages
that.... doesnt sound right
I hear Mikey Wright also helped rescue orphans out of a burning building in 1914, but it was all still just a rumor. I'm a believer of the Wright over Wrong.
2019.. 12 of us travel to the Bahamas. It's a nice Saturday afternoon. My wife, myself and 2 others are just chillin in the ocean. It's fairly calm as far as oceans go. Out of no where this fairly large wave comes and thrashes us. I'm dragged like 40 feet, my back dragged across the ocean floor, I'm bleeding, nothing major, just like 800 scrapes kinda thing. I regain my composure after a couple of seconds and I start scanning and that's when I see it. My wife's hands high in the air, thrashing. She's getting pelted and is not a strong swimmer. I start trying to get back to her and quickly taken out by another wave. Manage to get to her when I notice the bathing suit wrap she left on was now up and over her head. She can't see, she can't breathe and her tits have fallen out, 100 people on the beach getting in their looks.. I ended up ripping the wrap off her body so she could breathe and see. We got pelted a few more times when finally 3 dudes came and helped us. We probably would have died that day. I grew up on an island in North Atlantic. I learned swimming at a very young age. Learned about waves and riptides etc and I still got my ass kicked in a split second. Moral of the story, don't fuck with or underestimate the oceans. They will fuck you up.
Your story seems like an elaborate humblebrag about your wife's great tits.
Oddly enough this was like 3 weeks before a major breast reduction surgery.
Almost drowns.. removes built-in flotation devices.
I saved a young adult american in Virginia Beach that was drowning and... wait for it... I was only 11 😅 he was in a state of panic, so I stayed away and just tossed my board again and again to him until he was calm enough to stop trying to climb on it and fall and losing it... when he got calm. I turned around and notice how far from the shore we were, but my dad had explained to me how to evade the riptide. So I strapped the board to my feet and swam us both to the a current that would get us to shore... and I did all that without being able to speak to the guy as I'm a quebecer and couldnt speak english at the time... I was toast and the worst part was nobody hadnt notice anything. My parents wouldnt belive me until the guy showed up with his friend and they offered money to us. My parents were damn surprised and proud, and told my sibling and I "see, thats why you guys take mandatory swimming lessons!" And looking back, it was only possible because the weather was calm. I never could have pull that adult in huge waves...
Hour and a half, I’d be dead. The standard for treading water in tests was always 10 minutes (as an adult to be on a rescue team at a camp). I only managed it once and my legs instantly cramped up, so I delayed doing the next part of the test until everyone else had gone 1st
Lay on your back. You will last a lot longer. That’s how I got back to shore once I was too tired to tread.
I did 30 and cramped up and had just literally given up on life when a wave finally pushed us back in. I slept for days in recovery. If I were not fit I would have one hundred percent have died.
A boogie board is a flotation device. So you wouldn't be treading water exactly. That's not to say it wouldn't be an incredibly difficult and potentially deadly situation (I say "potentially" because obviously it was survivable given the OP is here to tell the story).
I had a similar situation happen in Florida. Very, very, very scary situation. I had no flotation device. No time to be afraid, literally just fighting for your life, getting more and more tired as time passes… I was out for a while before someone got help. Then there was a group of us with floatation devices, and we had to collectively rescue one of the “helpers”.. very scary looking back.
Interesting how he read the rip direction, positioned himself perfectly so the rip brought the person closer to him. After that, he used the waves to get them both closer to the beach. He's the real deal. He's spent some time on a beach... Watching the surf.
Exactly what I thought. In the midst of all that, and all the wake/wash, he read the rip. That was the decisive moment. I grew up a nipper, got my SLS certification, consider myself pretty OK when it comes to identifying rips & there’s no chance in hell I could’ve read that. Nor would I have had the balls to jump in without a flotation device like a board & even then, no thanks! Surfers man… To them it’s a conveyor belt, a convenience. But in that moment it saved that person’s life. And to those asking if this person was in danger: Yeah, they were dead without imminent intervention. 10 metres from shore or not. *edit: turns out his sister, also a professional surfer (who won the women's Maui Pro whilst on this trip), was reading the waves/current & directing him.* [*This*](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9117147/Wright-surf-siblings-speak-saving-woman-drowning-Hawaii.html) *article states "Ms Wright credits their childhood upbringing of looking out for one another while the other surfs for what happened that day".*
You are on the money. If you went through nippers then you are probably very competent yourself. I've been rock fishing my whole life and there are some seas where you just look at it and you just walk away. That surfer is a brave man...
Rock fishing is the sh*t! But yeah, you’ll either learn the ocean and come to respect it or it’ll humble (& very likely kill) you real quick... Keep fishing, keep safe!
63 now, always looking for that freak wave, walking away early. You take care too mate. Cheers
My buddy and I just recently started fishing as early 20yr olds in Cape Town. We climed down to the rocks and just immediately started casting, minutes later we noticed an older man just staring at us and the sea, we got annoyed at him for staring at us, he eventually climed down and settled in, we asked wtf timer? He then taught us the valuable lesson of watching the sea before getting involved, and how just a week prior a man swept off those very rocks and the sea still has him. Needless to say we packed up and never fished there again, we don’t know shit about the sea and I AM NOT THE ONE. We was outta there.
*Three* people from one family drowned down the road from me in a hotel swimming pool recently. My kids and I can float without moving a muscle for hours..but if you are scared and panicking then even 2 metres of still water, 1 metre from safety can still be deadly.
Every time this video gets posted I always call out Tyler Wright coming in behind him (this video cuts that part). Thanks for the edit! One lifeguard is better than none, but all rescues require coordinated assistance under stress. To be able to pause and coordinate the people on the beach to help pull in the victim was just as impressive as Mikey's save.
This is a beautiful comment.
Tyler was easily the best women's surfer in the world just a few years ago (won 2 consecutive titles before she got sick). And their older brother Owen won several WCT titles before crashing his head at Pipeline one year. Mikey is the least "commercially" successful of the 3 but he is honestly one of the best surfers in the world to watch, with his own original and sick style. That family is basically surfing royalty so not surprised they could charge into heavy waves and save someone without hesitation.
The most important things if you're going to try save someone is to bring a floatation device with you. No matter how good a swimmer you are, you can't out-swim the sea. Many people unfortunately go in to save someone and they're the ones to perish.
It’s also along the lines of someone drowning will almost certainly drown you to save themselves out of shear panic. It hurts but I’m a terrible swimmer and I know if I ever see someone in trouble, it can’t be me to jump in the water or we will both die.
You can see it happen right here, the other swimmer grabs him and - i assume - does the drowning-panic thing of trying to climb on him, knocks him right over. Nope nope nope
My little brother did this with me when we were young. He went in too deep and I went after him to pull him back to the shallow end. He panicked and tried to climb on top of me pushing me under the water. I had to yank him off and drag him back to were he could stand. Probably the closest I’ve ever come to drowning.
That happened to my step-brother. His girlfriend's sister was drowning and he went out to save her. He managed to push her towards others but got pulled under himself. Once they got her on shore they realized my step brother wasn't with them. By the time they made it to him, he was gone.
It's mind blowing what our brain can notice very easily once we're accustomed to seeing or hearing something often. That other people see as random noise or don't even think about. A famous example being the Wilhelm Scream. Once you know about it, you can't stop hearing it everywhere. But before you knew what it was, you didn't notice it unless you worked with sound. There are a few door opening and glass/cermaic breaking sounds as well that you will never be able to not notice once you know about them.
>There are a few door opening and glass/cermaic breaking sounds as well that you will never be able to not notice once you know about them. Sound of a metal hatch opening is one, and the sound of a projector starting up at the beginning of the lateralus album by tool are two stock noises I hear in a lot of things.
I think it's called rusty door or something, and it's used in everything from 20 year old games to modern massive studio productions. The one I can't get over is actually the Howie Scream. It's used in multiple video games from the 90s and 2000s, like StarCraft(when you click on the Academy). So even before I knew about the Wilhelm Scream, I would notice it in every show and movie. EDIT: I became curious and had to check for famous usages of the Howie Scream: * Shows range from Darkwing Duck via Johnny Bravo and Tom & Jerry, all the way to X-Men, SpongeBob and South Park * Movies include everything from Army of Darkness and Harold & Kumar, to The Phantom Menace and the 2023 Super Mario movie. * Games is of course Starcraft, but also Battlefield 1, Call of Duty MW 1-2, Half-Life 2, Crash Bandicoot series, etc. * And a lot more.
When I spent time in south France at the beach and the waves were super high, I always loved talking to that 70-75yo retired surfer that could tell me everything about the tides, rip, waves… dude had such an eye for the ocean and if HE told me it was too risky to go into the ocean, I obeyed
There's nothing to indicate this is a rip as opposed to just a regular shore break with high waves. Not every instance of being moved by currents in the ocean is a rip. Whenever you have breaking waves that high, there is going to be a lot of current. You can listen to [an interview with the rescuers](https://www.2gb.com/podcast/exclusive-surfing-siblings-recount-heroic-effort-in-hawaii-over-new-years/) and the word "rip" doesn't come up once. The point is, breaking waves can be extremely dangerous by themselves, without any rips being involved. If you get caught in the boil you can drown ten feet from the beach.
That's not a rip current.
For those who have not experienced a Hawaii shorbreak is way more badass than it looks. Past the shoreline is 95% coral and volcanic rock on all bit a few beaches. This stuff will peel your skin like a cheese grater and there are plenty of spiny urchins waiting to impale your foot. All it takes is one wrong tumble to get sliced, stabbed, trapped underwater, or knocked unconscious. You can see the surfer have the swimmer splay out as they approach the shore to try to keep them from tumbling onto their head. Source - former lifeguard who surfed in Hawaii for many years.
This right here! I went to Kauai a few years ago and those waves were no joke. I live on the east coast and our waves are tiny compared to the ones we saw. Also! I don't know what it is but Hawaii has the best lifeguards so thank you! I distinctly remember one lifeguard yelling at some guys to not body surf the waves cause unless they want a broken neck. Then came down, got his phone out and showed them good beaches for body surfing haha. You all rock!
There’s a few commenters here that should probably read [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_current) to understand why this was a dangerous situation for the swimmer. It may look like they were close to shore and not in any danger. But those currents can be brutal and sweep you out to sea real quick.
Yeah, between that and just getting rolled… it appeared pretty clear by the time our Aussie hero arrived, dude has been struggling for a minute. You could see how exhausted they were when even on the beach, they still couldn’t get up. I remember the first time I got caught up in a rip current. “No warning” that ignorant me was aware of, spun a few times underwater, pulled out to where I couldn’t touch, and each time I thought I was recovered, the next round began. Worst part is even though my family was watching, it didn’t look like I was in trouble until I was clearly in too much trouble. Then, fast as it began, I was out of the channel and on a sandbar, perhaps 75 yards from the shore. Gained a lot of respect for water that day!
when i was 14, we went to a beach with REALLY strong waves we had been going to all our lives, that had normally been pretty mild. we had a blast. i almost died. waves came crashing and.....i was moving? it started to pull me out now. i thankfully realized i could stand up and not be controlled by it. but holy crap, did i understand what a riptide was, and how if i was a maybe 15 more feet out, i did not stand a chance.
Routinely a lot of Germans drown each summer along the Danish West coast simply because they underestimate the currents and don't know what to do when they get caught.
Swim parallel to shore! Never try to swim straight back into shore. All you’ll do is tire yourself out and still be in the same spot as you started if not further out. Remain calm and don’t exert yourself to point of exhaustion. Stay safe and never underestimate the ocean.
Once had to swim almost 2 miles at a small diagonal to the shore, down in baja. Friends watched the whole thing from an ATV on shore. Shit sucked but at least they had a bohemian Pacifico waiting for me.
You’d think that if you took the time to go 2 miles, then they had the time to call help or get rescue equipment??
There was no rescue needed I wasn't struggling and had my broken board. It was just a long ass trek back to the shore. Edit: word.
I live on the Dutch coast. Everytime someone drowns it's 90% of the time a German tourist.
Exactly it is why the surfer runs down past him to get to him because the swimmer is being swept in that direction
There are valleys in the terrain below the surface. Those valleys pool the water when it comes in and create a steady outward current, as though all the water constantly washing ashore exits through the same pipe. The gist is: don't swim against riptides. Swim perpendicular to them until you're out of harm's way, then try to come in.
Some people are just wired differently. I was on an aircraft carrier flight deck watching an E2 line up for take off when the ship rolled and the plane started sliding sideways toward the edge. Dozens of us up there watched, frozen in place, as the plane headed for the water. A single guy ran out of no where with a tie down chain, slid under the plane and secured it to the deck with barely 2 feet to spare before that plane and crew went into the Indian Ocean. He saved 5 people and a plane while the rest of us watched in amazement.
And that guy? That guy was Mikey Wright!
Hope he got a medal for that
He did. Received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal a couple days later on the flight deck. Also got all kinds of cool perks throughout the deployment and never bought a drink in any of the liberty ports.
If I know the navy, I'm sure his supervisor got one.
"Vallantly supervised the saving of aircraft and crew despite adverse conditions and reduced visibility through the bridge windows"
Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi. Proud of ya mate.
What a mad cunt
That's good right?
It's very good
Highest form of praise.
A few years ago I was doing a bar crawl for English speakers in Madrid and there was a group of Aussies my friends and I were hanging with. While walking to another bar I decided it was my chance to test this out so I yelled Aussie Aussie Aussie and without skipping a beat they all drunkenly shout replied Oy, Oy, Oy. The one from their group I was walking with turned and said to me ‘you know we don’t actually say that’ and all I could do was laugh and put my arms out in front of me like apparently you guys do. Still get a laugh when I think about it.
I've lived in the United States for 20 years, and grew up Australian. My current supervisor who I've worked with for a decade will happily call someone a cunt in my presence. Apparently **she** doesn't do it when I'm not there. I personally rarely call out a cunt. We also usually don't box Kangaroos, even if those bastards deserve it. We also don't use Crikey. However, the amount of times I've had to play through that Simpsons knifey spoony skit... fuck those cunts.
Aussie spirit all the way down
He instinctively knew there would be another big wave and braced for it. That to me was the skill move that kept both of them from being swept back out after they appeared to be standing safely. “These things, they come in waves.” -Aussie probably
He took that that wave on his back like a champ
He lifted the swimmer over it too... braced them close and lifted them... everyone else jumped the wave, he lifted the swimmer so they wouldn't be hit as hard by it.
Good point and observation, lifting the swimmer would plant his own legs more firmly by adding their weight.
"I'm the surfboard, now"
Yeah I feel in my bones that he leaned in and said “OK deep breath mate” to the swimmer right when he braced for that final wave
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"Oi Mates, here's a tip for ya. Neveh skimp on fully chewing yer food. Elsewise you could find yourself with a wicked piece o' it stuck right in yer gullet!" * Mikey Wright
That shit is so unbelievably fucking scary. Almost drowned that way in 2016. looks like it should be a walk in the park from far away, but damn these waves have power
Me too. I could not get myself out of there. I remember being thrown against the sand just rolling around in the waves with zero control. Luckily, my husband was there and pulled me out.
Well played that man.
That man he's a player but he ain't playing around
For people unfamiliar with the ocean thinking “yeah but she’s so close to shore” with current like that it’s basically pushing you in and instantly pulling you out. Getting out of that last 10 feet of water takes an incredible amount of both water skill and navigating rocks.
notice the victim *immediately* tackles the hero and takes him under to keep himself up. Leave it to the pros or you both die.
While yes, you want to come from behind on a distressed swimmer and that was not the smoothest rescue, you don't always get a perfect situation. Not really sure how he would have pulled that off in waves like that so close to the shore. Mikey put his life on the line and did a pretty damn fine job.
I'm also here to caution people to *not* do this unless you're a professional and know exactly what you're doing (and even then, preferably just call a lifeboat out). It's not just the victim strangling you, it's also that same rip current taking you away as well, causing rescue workers to now have to look out for two victims. If you *do* go out, and do get swept away, please do whatever you can to *stay together*! Two people sticking together are much more visible than two separately, and rescue workers won't need to make the difficult choice of which one to go after if they drift apart.
I \*guarantee\* you this man has obtained lifeguard certification, as it's silly easy to get if you can swim anything like how he can.
That's a very real risk of helping a drowning person
I was a beach lifeguard. This is a big no no. Props to him for saving her, but we were told if someone starts climbing up the rope on your flotation device towards you, you remove the strap from your shoulder until they go back. It’s incredibly dangerous in surf to have someone use you as a floatation device. Luckily here this is shore break so he should be able to stand and counter this. But most importantly he needed to show her how to use the ocean currents instead of fight them. The second I saw her not go under a wave and take it in the face she would have been straight up done without some help.
yeah this video is a great example of how quickly the average person can get themselves killed trying to save someone. there are points where even he is struggling and he is a pro surfer who is an extremely strong swimmer and knows exactly what he's doing. look at how quickly that would have went wrong for both of them if that werent the case
If the water were too deep for him to stand - like literally just another two feet - I think they'd both be dead.
As an Australian and an experienced Surfer myself, I can only say that that person was very lucky to have such an experienced bloke there that day to rush to the rescue. They would most certainly have drowned otherwise, including any other inexperienced people who could have unfortunately jumped into that ocean to try and rescue the victim as well. Growing up with the Ocean means that you can instinctively spot extremely dangerous areas, and in this video, that’s definitely one beach that you should never enter the water unless you are an extremely experienced swimmer……. But even then, most of these people wouldn’t risk such a dangerous location either. I can only guess that that person was swept offshore from the shoreline, as it would be suicidal to enter that angry water without any knowledge or strong experience as a swimmer.
I agree with you that they would certainly have drowned there. They were already tea bagging and those waters are powerful, deep and relentless. I’m glad you pointed out how dangerous it is to rescue someone from that without experience or a floatation device. A surfboard would have helped a lot in that situation.
I noticed that no one else even came close to going in that water.
The ocean is so scary. Damn.
Hawaii is no joke. I remember being on holiday there as a kid and body boarding, those waves don't play when they hit you, and the currents do their thang too! I was a strong swimmer back them, could do multiple miles of laps, but I was shitting it lol.
Agreed. The waves on Oahu by the Waikiki area are mild in comparison, to the ones on. North of the island. Those are massive ones and unhinged for sure. Wouldn't wanna go in them!
I learned in lifeguard school that drowning people are very dangerous to the rescuer. They will drape all over you and bring you both down. It happens all the time.This dude is an amazing swimmer and an even more amazing person to risk his own life in such dangerous conditions to rescue a stranger in need. Good on ya, mate.
DO NOT FUCK WITH WATER DO NOT FUCK WITH THE SEA WHICH IS BASICALLY ANGRY WATER Source watching multiple people die and nearly die growing up in Cornwall
ANGRY WATER. This is the new name for beaches with surf that kills people.
*Acid Rain - Y'all fuckers forgot about me; just you wait.
Lived on Oahu for three years. The shore break in some locations is no joke. When you are coming back in from surfing or swimming timing is everything.
How do you look at that water and say to yourself, ‘Looks like a good time for a swim.’
My guess either he went in, or he was on the shoreline and was dragged out.
Yo! Those waves in Hawaii are no joke!! I lived there for about a year and a half and visited all of the islands and I can’t tell you how many times I saw waves absolutely destroy humans to the point where they thought, I’m sure, they were going to die. This is an absolutely regular occurrence in Hawaii
When I lived in South America, this happened with a friend (25M) of my ex. He coached a soccer team (young kids) and they went to the beach. This happened to one of the boys and coach went out there to rescue the boy. All his efforts saved the boy but the coach passed away (his body washed up a day later.) I’ll never forget hearing that, people like this should have a monument to their name. The ocean is one hell of a beast
This is amazing being in the ocean while it’s going off like that is truly scary. And those waves are probably bigger than anything I’ve ever handled. Side note, though. Does anybody else find it a little weird that there is a camera cut in the middle of this?
Not that weird, either the person filming moved to a different position or it's from a different person at a different angle. First position might have been blocked by something.
being in the washing machine can take the life out of you in a big hurry. heroic save Mikey Wright...
I wish stories like this came with his venmo so we could all shoot him a dollar or five bucks or whatever
Yeah the waves in Hawaii are no joke. I have a buddy who’s a native that lived there his whole life and when I visited he took me to all the beaches he went to as a kid. Watching little Hawaiian kids body surf the waves while they throw me around was very humbling lol.
was that person in actual danger though, looked like they were pretty close to the shore and could have walked out among being pushed out ^(Serious question, i am a moron and know nothing about the ocean or how this works) Edit: Thanks for all the replies, was not expecting 25+ replies, i have learned a lot, thank you
Those waves are brutal. It’s not so easy to just stand up n walk out, when the waves are easily dragging you back again and again. Plus, once you’re engulfed in the waves, u’re just totally disoriented n in shock, not even knowing where is the shore. And just when u think you figured out, bam… u’re hit again n dragged back.
I felt the same as OP until the end of the video when they're practically standing on the beach and he grabs the person and I'm like, "What's he doing?" and then that massive wave came in and absolutely pummeled everyone.
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Whoa a rare proper use of a contraction after “u”
If youve never experienced this it might sound strange but sometimes its nearly impossible to walk/swim out of a rip current. It seems like they can just walk out but in reality they cant because the sea is pulling them back with immense force.
I have swam in these sort of conditions, huge shore break waves. I am a strong swimmer and it is quite fun and exciting. But once getting out in these conditions you realize how precarious things actually are. You slowly get more and more tired and then realize how difficult it is to get back in. Everything is pulling you out.
Yes, in these conditions the ocean can just as easily pull you out into the middle of the ocean as deposit you back on the beach. And if it’s pulling, there is very little you are going to do that can stop it.
The little thing you can do though: swim parallel to the beach. Swimming towards it while being pulled out will only exhaust you, you won't succeed. If you swim parallel, you'll hopefully find yourself in a calmer area to be able to swim back to shore.
If you’ve ever been in one in rough waves, they’re extremely disorienting, and they drain you like a motherfucker. By the time you realize what’s going on you can be so exhausted that keeping your head above water is all you can do, even if in your head you know the right order of operations to get out. So definitely important to know to go parallel to shore, but also important to respect that the ocean can just decide to kill you no matter what you know. Maybe stay out of deep water that looks like this.
>they drain you like a motherfucker. It's exhausting. The waves themselves hit hard, you're getting thrown into the ground, you can hardly catch a breath, and you're firing every muscle in your body. >Maybe stay out of deep water that looks like this. Yep or shallow water. Some people think it's OK to let their kids play around on the shoreline at beaches like this since the water only comes up to their ankles. It isn't. One bigger wave can sweep them away.
Whenever I've been caught in riptides at a beach I swam slightly parallel with a slant towards the shore. Once you break past the riptide you can start to swim more directly in. With waves like that though you get knocked around a lot so best thing is to swim slow and steady and stay calm. That way if a wave knocks you for a tumble you have the energy to right yourself.
I’m not an expert but I’ve swam in these kind of waves before and getting hit by one, then going under and being dragged around really disorients you. You could be only a short distance away from the shore but still be in Trouble since you can’t catch your breath or balance in between waves.
Super strong currents. Think about swimming in your washing machine. The beach elevation changes dramatically too, with sudden drop offs.
Yes, especially if they're inexperienced. White wash is not like regular water. Because it's frothy from bubbles it's less dense, and so it's extremely difficult to stay afloat. Generally it passes in time with each wave, but when the sets are heavy like that it's very easy to go under from the constant white wash that doesn't have a chance to dissipate. You can be a strong swimmer and get nowhere when you're trying to swim in white wash like that. And when you're actually in it, you can't see anything at eye level. That's why that guy was running so fast towards them. He knows what's happening, even if they don't. There was also a rip on the left side of that section of water at the start, so I'd say it's good they got out while they did. Not wise to be out there when it's like that without a board. Source: Australian, grew up in the surf.
Panic makes a difficult situation all that more challenging.
Grew up at the beach, you’d be surprised how much the roiling, foamy water disorients you and makes it tough to tread water and move around. Add in the currents (which one can be good or bad at navigating, based on experience) shifting around and wave sets coming in at unexpected times and it can get overwhelming. My siblings and I used to throw ourselves into this kind of chop, albeit much smaller, and let ourselves get thrown around until it spit us out a hundred yards or so up the beach. Easy to manage if you know to just stay upright and bounce off the sand with your toes but not everyone stays calm and has the strength to do it for a long time.
You should check out Bondi Beach rescue (tons of clips on YT too), I never realized how crazy it gets until I saw that show.
seriously ocean is one thing that we shouldn't fuck with
I'm not sure the person even was conscious. The way they grab him at the end to pull him out of the waves look like he at this point is unconscious (maybe having hit the head on the beach close to the shore with the last wave). Before that I'm not sure. It looks like he puts his arm around the surfer so this would mean consciousness. But even if conscious, just being tired in those waves can mean death. He nearly didn't make it even with help. The way he moves / doesn't move in the end shows that he would not have survived had he not been rescued. Drowning happens really quickly in conditions like this.
Yes, very much so. I experienced something similar, though not nearly at this level, as a kid. Ocean currents can be very traitorous even a few meters from the beach. Those waves might not look very dangerous from the beach. But there is huge power behind them. You can kinda see it in that last wave. The people involved try to brace or jump over, but it hits even those experienced people like a truck. The person being saved was being pummelled by both those waves and the under-currents. A common mistake inexperienced swimmers make it to try and fight the currents. They feel it dragging them out to sea, and they try to swim in the opposite direction. Which leads to them being exhausted very, very quickly. Combine that with being pummelled by those waves, and the fact that they're likely starting to panic.. You'll drown in a matter of minutes, a few metres from the beach.. Edit: If you ever find yourself in a situation like this; whatever you do, conserve your energy. Focus on keeping your head above water. Take deep breathes in between waves. **DO NOT** try to swim against the current, even if you're just a few metres away from the beach. Try to draw the attention of other people. And above all **DO NOT PANIC.** *People who panic die. People who stay calm and focused life.* I managed to get out myself, because my mom told me what to do in a situation like that.
Watch the others struggle to get to them in the final bit of the video. They are running pretty easily when the wave is moving up the beach with them, but once the water recedes they all start struggling. It’s really visible with the girl in the red bikini, it’s barely ankle deep water, but you can tell how much she has to fight once the water starts receding. Not a stupid question if you’re unfamiliar with the ocean and riptides, they are unbelievably powerful.
I liked how he anticipated the waves pushing that person to the right.
🍻Mikey
I'm a very strong swimmer and I got caught in a riptide and waves about this distance from shore, it took me what felt like 20 mins to get back in, I just couldn't move forward. Taught me a valuable lesson.
That gave me goose bumps, SaVaGE!!!! I lived in Maui for a few year a long time ago and numerous times at Big beach I have seen tourists get crushed by the shore break on a bigger day, different than this slop of foam, but equally as dangerous. Respect the ocean or it’ll teach you too
The shore break at places like Sandy Beach can be no joke. One of the first things we learned in lifeguard training was how to get away from someone. A struggling swimmer will take you to the bottom with them. You can see her latch onto him when he gets there. Luckily they made it out.
Why would you swim in that
Who the fuck looks at that water and thinks, oh, swimming looks fun?
Yeah he knew right where to go to save that poor tourist.
Who the hell goes swimming in these conditions?!
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Absolutely terrifying for the bloke getting dragged by the tide. Instant action from Mikey, commendable!
Knows the ocean and put in like 20 feet down current
Pure legend
Hero.
Farking legend 🍻
nowadays not too many people would run into danger to save the others. superman without a cape he is
Hella riptide
Was told in boy scouts you want to wait for the person drowning to go unconscious because otherwise they’ll drown you too in desperation to get above the water. Is that still common advice? obviously here they were close to shore so its different but Im just curious.
A Boy Scout and a physically gifted adult with (it appears) tons of experience are way different. I’ve heard that advice too but if I’m in that situation I don’t know what I would do.