Danger Lurks for Bodysurfers : Recreation: Recent fatalities show sport’s hazards. Lifeguards are especially worried about inexperienced surfers.

Staggering out of the water on a recent warm summer afternoon, Paul Choi, a novice bodysurfer from Anaheim, felt a little groggy and very lucky.

After catching a six-foot wave, he was tossed and turned like a load of laundry, then deposited on the beach.

Choi, 18, suffered only a minor setback--he lost a swim fin. Others have not been so fortunate:

* A 37-year-old Pennsylvania man died July 30 after he was knocked over by a four-foot wave and suffered multiple neck injuries while bodysurfing in Newport Beach.

* A 49-year-old Norco man broke his neck and died July 25 while bodysurfing at Huntington State Beach. Lifeguards said three- to five-foot waves swept him off his feet and slammed him head-first into the ocean floor.

* A 21-year-old Anaheim man drowned off Laguna Beach July 19 when a five- to six-foot wave crashed over him. Because he was in an unguarded area, beach officials were unable to determine whether he was bodysurfing or swimming.

Marine safety experts classify the recent deaths as a cluster of isolated accidents. They say the waves are no more dangerous this summer than they have been in recent years.

Even so, with Southern California beaches drawing bigger crowds every year, surfers say it seems as if accidents are on the increase. And many lifeguards say they are stepping up safety efforts.

The fatalities serve as powerful reminders of bodysurfing’s hidden dangers. It is a sport that seems so simple, so inviting--so easy, really--but can be so unforgiving.

“There’s always a threat out there,” said Dr. Jack Skinner, who has developed water safety programs through Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. “If you don’t time it right, or you’re not experienced, bodysurfing can be very dangerous. The spinal cord is like a piece of wet spaghetti. Once it’s injured, you don’t often recover its function.”

With little protection or margin for error, bodysurfers take risks every time they paddle into the ocean.

And shallow shore breaks, such as those at the Wedge on the end of the Balboa Peninsula, pose a grave danger--head and neck injuries.

“I had heard about people breaking their necks here,” said Choi, who has surfed the Wedge twice. “These waves will toss and turn you every way. I’ve been held under for 10 seconds.”

Most experienced bodysurfers are aware of the dangers at their local breaks. But it is the out-of-town visitors--the inexperienced and unaware--that lifeguards worry about.

“It’s difficult for an out-of-state person to realize that the ocean can be very dangerous,” said Eric Bauer, Newport Beach marine safety officer.

Bill Richardson, Huntington Beach marine safety captain, said: “The guys bodysurfing every day are seldom hurt, but you get someone who steps off the bus from Rialto, and maybe they don’t know what they’re doing, and all kinds of things can create problems.”

Surfing manufacturers estimate there are about 2 million bodysurfers and bodyboarders in the United States, the bulk of them in Southern California. Richardson acknowledges the inherent dangers of bodysurfing but does not believe that the recent fatalities should deter people from the water.

“For some reason, this seems to be the latest trend of death and destruction,” Richardson said. “But (the Huntington Beach death) was only the second one in 32 years that I know of where someone died breaking their neck in the surf line.

“We had 7.25 million visitors to our beach last year (in Huntington Beach), and there was only one drowning. . . . The chances are better of winning the lottery than drowning in our water.”

John Haden, 23, of Irvine, who has been surfing at the Wedge for five years, said he saw lifeguards and bodysurfers rescue as many as three people a day when the waves were big in July.

“It was pretty scary out there for a lot of guys,” he said, “even for the locals who come out here all the time.”

Tom Kennedy, a Lake Forest insurance agent, said he and other Wedge bodysurfers helped pull 10 near-drowning victims out of the water over a two-week period in July, more than any other period in his 12 years of bodysurfing.

Haden said even experienced bodysurfers make mistakes. Some take off straight down a wave instead of at an angle, driving themselves into the sand. Others do not get their arms out in front of them or hook their legs or arms into the wave to slow down.

As a result, bodysurfers can strike the ocean floor with the weight of an Olympic-sized swimming pool dumped on top of them.

“The sand is wet, and when you hit it, it’s very unforgiving,” said Paul Fisher, a lifeguard at the Wedge.