‘I’m here to save you’: Sibling junior lifeguards rescue 3 teens from surf off H.B. State Beach

“Don’t panic. I’m a junior lifeguard and I’m here to save you.”

That’s what Lucy Granger, 12, told a teenage girl as she and her brother, Cameron, 14, were rescuing that girl and two others who had been pulled out into the ocean by a rip current on Oct. 17 at Huntington State Beach.

“I guess I was trying to reassure them and, I don’t know, it just came out,” Lucy said.

After a long day in which Cameron was in a swim meet and Lucy was in San Diego competing in a soccer tournament, the two wanted to do something relaxing. So they went bodysurfing that Saturday evening near lifeguard Tower 11, close to Newland Street and Pacific Coast Highway. However, as they were leaving the water at about 6:30 p.m., they heard screaming coming from about 50 yards up the coast and they started walking toward the sound.

“The screaming just freaked me out the most,” Cameron said. “It was an instinct just to go out and look.”

The Grangers have been Huntington State Beach junior lifeguards the past two years. Their father, Robert Granger, who was with them that evening, said he thought the screaming was just teens having fun. But his son thought otherwise.

“Sure enough, those screams were not screams of joy,” said Granger, 48. “They were screams of terror.”

Chris Egan, a California State Parks lifeguard and junior lifeguard program coordinator for Huntington and Bolsa Chica state beaches, said the three girls were 14 to 15 years old. They were about 150 yards from shore, Granger said.

Though the sunlight was fading, Cameron ran toward the group, dived into the water with his fins on and reached one of the girls.

“I wasn’t concerned about freaking myself out,” Cameron said. “I was more concerned about helping them out.”

Granger compared his son’s movements to a slow-motion scene on the TV show “Baywatch.”

As Cameron was taking the first teen in, Lucy ran into the ocean to help another girl. Cameron brought in the last girl once his sister and the other teen made it to shore.

“I wasn’t really thinking of them dying,” Lucy said. “I was just thinking of trying to grab them and pull them in.”

Paramedics and lifeguards arrived and checked on the three girls. No injuries were reported, Egan said.

Egan, who has been head of the state’s junior lifeguard program for 12 years, said he was proud that two children from his program were able to save a person in need, let alone three people.

Cameron and Lucy said they received some rescue training during their two years with the program, swimming to a buoy and taking it to shore.

“Being a lifeguard and having a number of rescues under my belt, I’m sure they feel the gratitude and pride in doing something they’re not formally trained to do,” Egan said. “I’m proud for them and the state junior lifeguards program, knowing that we’re providing a certain level of training for kids of that age to recognize the situation and to act appropriately.”