Boys Caught by Flood in Riverbed Are Saved

It started Sunday when three boys began innocently exploring the Santa Ana River behind their Huntington Beach back yards, as storm clouds roiled overhead.

Within minutes, the riverbed, which had only shallow rivulets running through it, filled with storm runoff water, leaving two of the boys stranded on a sand bar and the other barely swimming to safety through raging currents.

By the time rescuers arrived on the scene a few moments later, Andrew Bergsetter, 9, and Aaron Van Cleve, 11, were up to their waists in still-rising waters and crying hysterically for help as they clutched tall reeds for balance.

The water level rose another two feet as local firefighters and lifeguards spent the next 30 minutes performing a daring rescue of the two boys, who fire officials said could easily have drowned had they been swept by churning waters down to the river mouth and crashing waves about a mile downstream.

Fast, Turbulent Current

“I really doubt that they would have survived to the ocean because the current was extremely fast and turbulent,” said Bill Cooper, a Huntington Beach fire battalion chief who helped coordinate the rescue operation.

According to Jeffrey Reynolds, 9, the youngster who swam to safety, the three boys had been out “playing around on the sand” of the river shortly after noon Sunday. They were playing near the Hamilton Street overpass, not far from their homes in the same apartment complex.

“And then the water started going over the sand,” Jeffrey said.

The three boys, standing in the middle of the riverbed at that time, tried to run to the safety of the concrete-lined western bank. They later told rescuers that the water descended so rapidly that “it was like a dam bursting.”

Cumulative Runoff

Fire officials said the water likely represented the cumulative runoff from the river’s path through north Orange County, which received as much as two inches of rain earlier in the day.

By the time the boys had all run to the last sand bar, about 50 feet from the bank, Reynolds said the water was rising so high and moving so swiftly that the Bergsetter boy started panicking and refused to venture any farther.

“He was shaking to death,” Jeffrey said. “Aaron stayed with him to calm him down. I swam across for help.”

Jeffrey almost didn’t make it. As he neared the bank, he said he was swept into a swift current that threatened to carry him downstream. But he said he managed to grab hold of some river bottom reeds and pull himself ashore. He called 911 for help from a neighbor’s house.

Fire officials arrived at the river a few moments after Jeffrey’s 12:26 p.m. call for help. By then, Cooper said, the other two boys were nearly up to their waists and trying to hold their balance in 15- to 20-m.p.h. currents by hanging onto weeds growing on the sand bar. Around them, large chunks of wood and even a shopping cart could be seen swirling among the storm debris, he said.

Two Huntington Beach city lifeguards, who were called to the scene, jumped in the river about 200 yards upstream and swam with the currents to meet the youths and reassure them that help was imminent. The water had risen to about six feet by then, but lifeguards were holding them and guiding them with ropes.

“They were really panicky and kept saying, ‘Thank God you came,’ ” said lifeguard Mark Panis, 23, who swam out to rescue them with lifeguard Mike Beuerlein, 24.

Life Line to Shore

Fire crews from Huntington Beach and neighboring Costa Mesa, in the meantime, had dropped an inflated fire hose in the water upstream and floated it down for use as a life line to shore, Cooper said.

Once the life line was in place, Joseph Milligan, 25, a lifeguard at Huntington State Beach, swam out with another rope and brought Andrew back to safety, followed by Beuerlein. Milligan said the frightened youngster cried and screamed the whole way back to shore.

“I’m sure he thought he was going to drown,” Milligan said.

In case the boys or lifeguards drifted away during the rescue, additional rescue teams from Huntington Beach and Newport Beach were positioned downstream to jump in and help. But lifeguard Panis tied the other boy to a boogie board he had brought for the rescue and guided him safely back to shore.

Both Andrew and Aaron suffered “border-line hypothermia” from exposure to the frigid waters, fire officials said. But they were released to their parents otherwise unhurt.

Had Rehearsed for Rescue

The boys’ parents expressed their gratitude for rescuing their sons. Huntington Beach fire crews and lifeguards had long rehearsed for such a river rescue, but had never had the opportunity to put one into actual practice.

“I’m gonna take them (lifeguards) out to dinner,” Andrew’s mother, Carole Riggs, said. However, lifeguards, she said, politely declined her offer, saying they could not accept gratuities no matter how heartfelt.

Riggs, who witnessed the rescue, said she had not known her son was playing in the river bed, and discovered only Sunday that it is a common playground for the neighborhood children.

“I’m not happy; I don’t know what I think,” Riggs said.