Rescuer Was There When Her Life Was on the Rocks

When David Slack arrived at Amber Heyer’s house Monday, the 11-year-old girl didn’t know if she should hug him or what.

After all, this was the first time she had thanked somebody for saving her life.

So as Amber stood bashfully staring at the 24-year-old Slack, who had rescued her from a near-drowning Sunday near Laguna Beach’s Heisler Park, he decided to break the ice.

“Just give me a high-five,” he said, raising his hand to slap Amber’s.

Slack, a Laguna Niguel computer technician, had pulled Amber from the ocean after a wave swept her off a ledge onto jagged rocks as she, her brother and a friend searched for a sandal she had lost.

The wave knocked Amber about 5 feet onto the rocks, and for about a minute the surf held her underwater.

“I was scared,” Amber said. “I thought I was going to be banged up against the rocks again and I was scared because I didn’t know where I was or what was happening.”

Slack, meanwhile, had been sitting on the rocks watching the surf with a friend.

“I was just sitting there watching this gully thinking about how strong the water there is when this group comes by and this wave comes up and hits Amber and knocks her over,” Slack said. “In all the time I was sitting there, none of the other waves went that high. She got hit by that one-in-a-hundred wave.”

He feared the waves would throw Amber against the rocks and injure her severely. When he got to Amber, she was hyperventilating and had inhaled some water, but was otherwise all right.

“When she stopped hyperventilating, she said, ‘My God, I’m still alive,’ ” Slack said. “I don’t know if I saved her life, but I guess I saved her from a lot of damage.”

Despite the fall and the pummeling she took from the surf, Amber suffered only cuts and bruises.

Afterward, Slack walked to a nearby concession stand to buy himself some ice cream, only to find that his money had fallen out of his pocket during the rescue.

“Then I looked down and saw a $1 bill on the ground and I thought, ‘When you do something good, something good happens to you.’ ”