THE CALIFORNIA DELUGE : Boy Thankful After Swift-Water Rescue : Survival: O.C. 14-year-old fell in while trying to jump a culvert. He is pulled out 1 1/2 miles downstream.

Matt Schwartz, 14, said he had always wondered what a near-death experience would be like. Tuesday, he found out.

The eighth-grader at Marco Forster Middle School in San Juan Capistrano was walking to a friend’s house after school when the storm hit. Holding his umbrella over his head, he attempted to jump a narrow culvert near San Juan Creek.

But he lost his balance and was swept into a larger tributary of the creek and then pulled underwater into a tunnel.

“I couldn’t breathe. It just sucked me in through this giant tunnel,” Matt said Tuesday night, after three county public works employees and paramedics had rescued him as he was about to be swept into a torrent of water a mile and a half downstream, near the ocean current.

“I was underwater for like a minute,” he said. “I’ve always wondered what almost dying would be like. . . . I thought I was going to die.”

Soon after falling into the creek near Stonehill Bridge in Dana Point, Matt saw an unidentified passerby. He waved at the man and screamed. The man alerted a crew of county workers nearby.

“Pretty soon, I saw a county truck and then a little bit later this fire engine,” Matt said. “All these people were throwing ropes at me, trying to pull me out.

“I couldn’t grab them, but I managed to catch hold of this cement on the bank. . . . Suddenly, somebody grabbed me and pulled me out.”

Matt was rescued by county workers Charles Rosas, 41, and Gabe Tinoco, 37, who pulled him to safety, while Jess Prado, 25, radioed for help.