Search Continues for Man Who Disappeared in Surf

Everything considered, 20-year-old Craig Hand had been doing well.

Two years after being diagnosed as having a brain tumor and despite debilitating seizures, he was determined to conquer his illness and planned to enroll in a community college this fall.

“He was in good spirits,” said his mother, Mary Hand, a registered nurse at UCI Medical Center in Orange. “He had all these plans, all these things he wanted to do.”

Hand, who must take medication to arrest his seizures, disappeared Thursday in the surf at Huntington Beach, triggering a search that his parents hope will lead to his return home.

About 6 feet tall, 185 pounds and with brown curly hair and brown eyes, Hand was last seen by his girlfriend at 2 p.m. entering the surf at 11th Street at Huntington Beach.

When he failed to return 20 minutes later, his family began a frantic search. “There wasn’t any rough surf that day,” his mother said. “We fear he may have bumped his head and is out walking around somewhere disoriented. Or he may have drowned. Maybe somebody saw him.”

Hand was wearing black swimming trunks with yellow and green coloring on the side. He had gone into the water with flippers and a small, hand-held floating board.

Mary Hand said her son had been taking anti-seizure medication three times a day, but even with that he was subject to seizures about once a week. The brain tumor, diagnosed two years ago, left him with some memory loss and speech problems.

“We are hoping for the best, that it wasn’t a drowning, that he may be out there wandering somewhere,” she said. “Without the medication, he’d go into seizures. He would have partial complex seizures that would last three or four minutes. Maybe he is lost or disoriented. He needs help.”

Since Hand’s disappearance, the family has canvassed the neighborhood distributing pictures.

“We need any information we can get,” his mother said. “We have notified the police, and they are helping, but so far we have heard nothing.”

Lt. Steve Davidson, a marine safety officer with the Huntington Beach recreation department, said lifeguards in the area had been looking for Hand but so far no leads had turned up.

Since the tumor was diagnosed around the time Hand graduated from Edison High School, doctors had been trying to control it through medication. Surgery held out as a last resort, Mary Hand said.

“He was doing well,” she said. “He had his girlfriend and all these plans about starting school in September and rebuilding his Camaro. He wanted to go to Orange Coast College, maybe trying a trade.”

“We’re very afraid for him,” she said.