3 Swimmers Survive Rough Seas : Rescue: An ocean swim off Laguna Beach nearly turns to tragedy when three friends are tossed onto the rocks. Two require hospital treatment.

Three young men--including two former swimming and water polo standouts at El Toro High School--were injured during an ocean swim Monday when chilly, rough seas tossed them against the rocks in a Laguna Beach cove.

Longtime best friends Eric Sedwick and Andrew McIntyre, both 21, were taken to South Coast Medical Center after a daring helicopter rescue and treated for severe cuts and bruises, Orange County Fire Department officials said. McIntyre’s younger brother Kevin was also bruised and slashed but did not need to be hospitalized.

The young men managed to crawl out of the water after four- to six-foot waves pummeled them against the coastal rocks. A nearby fisherman who saw them dialed 911 about 2:15 p.m., officials said. An emergency helicopter took Sedwick and Andrew McIntyre to safety, and Kevin McIntyre was able to hike out of the remote area with the help of firefighters.

The three were home in Laguna Hills visiting their parents from college, Sedwick’s parents said in an interview at the hospital’s intensive care unit. Sedwick is a political science student at UC San Diego.

Andrew and Kevin McIntyre were home on vacation from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. Kevin McIntyre was a South Coast League honorable mention all-star pick in water polo at El Toro High School in the 1993-94 school year, and Andrew McIntyre received an all-county scholarship in 1991 as both an outstanding swimmer and student at El Toro High.

The McIntyre brothers and Sedwick, a serious volleyball player at Laguna Hills High School, had decided to swim from the northwest tip of Three Arch Bay to a beach near the southeast point of the bay Monday afternoon.

But somewhere along the way they decided to return to shore because “they realized it was rougher than they thought,” said Teri Sedwick, Eric’s mother.

When they tried to swim toward the beach, the water sent them into the rocks instead, she said. They finally gave in and tried to go with the current, but were beaten against the rocks.

They emerged from the water, with Eric Sedwick badly bruised and suffering from hypothermia, said Orange County Fire Department Capt. Dan Young.

Andrew McIntyre and Sedwick were too weak to climb the steep cliffs, so a county fire helicopter was called in, Young said.

Fire officials tried to land the helicopter at the scene, but it was too large for the 75-foot-wide band of sand that was shrinking with the rising tide. A smaller Costa Mesa police helicopter zipped into the cove and landed with one skid in the water.

“The space was just about the size of the helicopter,” said K.C. Gleason, pilot of the Costa Mesa chopper. “Time was of the essence. The area was inaccessible, and we were within a few feet of the cliffside. . . . (The) tide was rising, and the ocean was very choppy.”

The men were airlifted to a field next to The Links at Monarch Bay golf course, and met by an ambulance that took them to South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach, officials said.

Teri Sedwick is thankful Eric survived, but in the hospital she slipped in one loving warning to her son. “As your mother, I have to say to you, ‘Don’t you ever do that again!’ ” she recalled telling him. Sedwick’s family said he is scheduled to be released today.