They Shared Joy Before Horror Struck in Spain : While Celebrating End of Olympic Games in Castelldefels With Lifelong Friends, Former USC Student Dies in an Instant

The five young men from Honolulu huddled on a Spanish beach two weeks ago, not so much to celebrate the end of the Barcelona Olympics as to reaffirm their lifelong friendship.

Brad Yim, Wyatt Jones, Nalu Kukea, Werner Girndt and Eric Chun had spent little time together in recent years because they were following their varied interests.

Yim, 21, attended USC for a year before transferring to the University of San Diego, where he and Girndt majored in business and played rugby.

Jones, 22, a world-class sailboarder, pursued his dream to be an Olympic paddler and was in Barcelona as a member of the U.S. kayak team.

Kukea, 21, who barely missed making the Olympic team, attended Orange Coast College and UC Irvine, and is transferring to the University of Hawaii this fall.

Chun attended the University of Colorado before transferring to an art school in San Francisco.

They came to Castelldefels, site of the canoe/kayak competitions, to support Jones, one of four Hawaiian paddlers in the Games. All but Girndt were original members of the Hawaii Canoe/Kayak Team of Honolulu, and each had paddled outrigger canoes since early childhood.

“It was a great time,” said Girndt, who began a European tour with Yim on July 6.

The group was sharing another such moment on the beach at Gava when they lit a skyrocket in the still, early morning of Aug. 9, five free spirits putting an exclamation point on a fabulous foreign rendezvous.

But suddenly, the skyrocket exploded on the ground, instantly killing Yim as his best friends watched in horror. The four others suffered ruptured eardrums.

“It was the most tragic thing I’ve had to deal with in my life,” said Mitch Kahn, captain of the U.S. kayak team.

Kahn, a firefighter from San Clemente, had just finished showering when the campground was rocked by the explosion. He said the blast was equivalent to at least one stick of dynamite.

One camper, who knew Kahn was a firefighter, screamed for his help. He raced toward the beach as the woman said, “Mitch, someone lost an arm.”

Kahn said: “She saw the tube (of the launcher) flying through the air, which she thought looked like someone’s arm.”

When Kahn reached Yim’s body, he knew nothing could be done and comforted two buddies who were leaning over their friend.

Kukea, a 1991 Pan-American competitor, took the skyrocket during a fireworks display earlier that evening in Castelldefels, near where they were camping, according to a Civil Guard report.

The Civil Guard recommended that Kukea be charged with negligence and possession of an explosive device. The National Police recommended that he be charged with negligence resulting in a death. Gava court officials could not be reached, but friends said the case is pending, and charges are expected to be dismissed.

The fireworks show was part of the city’s annual summer festival, Civil Guard officials said. But Kahn said the city played host to an Olympics-ending party for athletes, culminating with the fireworks show at the town’s old castle. He said the city held a similar affair after a pre-Olympic regatta last year.

While the closing ceremony in Barcelona the next evening celebrated the human spirit and all its possibilities, members of the canoe/kayak community--and particularly those closest to Yim, a one-time junior national champion--were left with pain.

“It gave us a chance to reflect on what really is important,” said Greg Steward, a kayaker from Williamsburg, Ohio. “It reinforced that winning a gold medal is not the main dream of my life.”

Steward, paired with Wyatt Jones in the C-2 1,000, did not win a medal. He and Jones were disqualified in the semifinals when their boat left its lane while trying to keep pace with a powerful crew from the Commonwealth of Independent States.

“We were disappointed,” he said. “But this reminds us we have no reason to feel sad (for not getting a medal).”

The athletes and coaches who had recently met Yim could not help but reflect on the importance of family and friends, they said. Yim personified those values and will be remembered as an outgoing character who embodied the Hawaiian spirit of friendship.

“It was so fitting, in a way, that when Brad died he was with this group of Hawaiians,” said Yim’s father, Errol, a Honolulu orthodontist. “They were all from Hawaii, arm in arm, hand in hand, when the accident occurred.”

That these five were together on the beach surprised no one who knew them. Another Honolulu paddling friend, Malia Kamisugi, was in the campground at the time of the blast, and her boyfriend, Olympic rower Chip McKibben of Newport Beach, helped Kahn get the injured to hospitals, where they were treated and released.

The youths were bonded by more than geography. They were linked by their love of water sports, whether it was surfing, sailboarding, paddling or water polo. Their friendship was like a brotherhood, Errol Yim said. “These Hawaii kids were bonded together so firmly,” he said. “They just knew to take care of one another.”

Girndt said: “If we weren’t together (now), I don’t know if I could take it.”

Girndt and hundreds of other well-wishers paid tribute to Yim in traditional Hawaiian style Wednesday night by dropping leis into the sea. Hundreds of boats debarked from the Hui Nalu Canoe area, where the boys first learned to paddle outriggers, and went to the entrance of Hawaii Kai to lay the flowered wreaths.

When Billy Whitford of Newport Beach started the Hawaii Canoe/Kayak Team in 1987, he persuaded Yim, Kukea, Jones, Chun and Kamisugi to join.

The next year, Yim and some of the others won junior national championships. They brought home so many gold and silver medals after a year’s training, Whitford knew he had tapped into a valuable resource.

“We all had the same interests,” said Girndt, who met Yim as a water polo opponent. Yim played for Punahou, Girndt for Kamchameha, two of Hawaii’s strongest private schools.

“We went camping together. We went everywhere,” Girndt said of the group.

They were some of Hawaii’s most celebrated young athletes. It seemed that the group excelled at all water activities--and some on land, too. Yim played soccer as a youth, but one day approached his father.

Errol Yim said: “He told me, ‘Dad, I want to play water polo.’ I said, ‘Water polo?’ ”

Brad spent a year studying with a Semester at Sea program in which he traveled the world. The experiences left a lasting impression. One day, Errol Yim talked to his son about focusing his energies on what he would do with his life.

“He turned to me,” Yim said, “and said, ‘Dad, if I focus on something, I’m going to miss everything else.’ ”

And Yim did not want to miss anything or anybody. Girndt said the two planned the summer tour of Europe last year and hoped one of their friends would make the Olympic team. When Jones did, they all shared in the excitement of participating in the Olympics.

“I can’t tell you how good these kids are in terms of morality, ethics, intelligence and sports potential,” Whitford said.

“They’ve got such great opportunities that they walk along the edge sometime and have no sense of consequence. If anything, they find out they’re not invulnerable.”

Girndt said the four survivors suffer from loss of hearing and are waiting to see if they need surgery to repair their eardrums.

“It’s like there is a constant ringing in the ears,” said Girndt, who could barely hear a few days after the accident.

The scars will heal, but the suffering and hurt will remain for a long time, Whitford said. Still, he believes there is something to be gained from the tragedy.

“They are going to take (Brad’s) spirit and carry it with them forever,” Whitford said.

“I know I will.”

Free-lance writer Sandra Ann Harris in Barcelona contributed to this story.