No Rescue From the Memories

When lifeguard Patrick Quigley got the Code 906--a rescue call--the description troubled him: “Proceed to Divers Cove. Three victims in the water.”

It was Mother’s Day when powerful, 3- to 5-foot waves were pounding the beaches and coves in Laguna Beach.

Quigley arrived at the cove and had no idea that two people would die, one would survive and the ordeal would be so physically and mentally demanding that the 27-year-old lifeguard would consider retiring.

But he didn’t. Quigley, a part-time lifeguard and full-time commodities trader, still works in Laguna Beach, which averages 1,500 rescues a year, a number that is expected to increase this year. Ocean drownings have nearly doubled this year from a year ago.

Already, there have been nine drownings this year, the most recent one Aug. 2 at Crystal Cove State Park, and Quigley and other lifeguards say they don’t forget any of them.

Quigley said he replays the tragic events of that day over and over in his mind and wonders, at times, if he did all he could.

Quigley helped save the life of Brooke Poling, 6, but was unable to save her mother, Angelica Cuevas, 26, and her mother’s boyfriend, Zackery Noah Kunzler, also 26. The girl had lost her footing and fallen into the surf, and Cuevas and Kunzler jumped in after her.

“Pat was first in,” said Mark Klosterman, the city’s chief lifeguard and Quigley’s supervisor, who has recommended him for a department commendation.

The victims were “trapped in this crack of nature known as Giggle Crack, where there are large waves breaking in front, creating this giant churning machine with a lot of hold-down factor,” Klosterman said.

Quigley said that he dived in and decided to rescue the girl first. But she was holding tight to Kunzler’s neck.

“She has to be the strongest girl I ever met. I mean, I was yelling at her to let go, and trying to pry her hands and arms off with all my might, and I still couldn’t get her off his neck,” Quigley said.

He managed to free her, but when a wave engulfed them he lost his grip around her waist and they went underwater. He reached out, grabbed her ankle and yanked her to his chest.

But the wave pushed them farther down into the water.

“I was upside-down, pinned under a rock, and I panicked and said, ‘I gotta get some air,’ and I thought about letting her go. But a wave freed me and took us both toward the surface. That’s when I yelled at [lifeguard Mark] Sproull, ‘Sproull, I need help!’ ”

Quigley swam the girl away from the rocks and handed her to Sproull.

He then focused on the others in the water.

By the time he got to them, they were unconscious.

Quigley, a marathon runner, said he sometimes works out the memories of that day while running. “I think about it all the time,” he said.

Quigley said he has not seen Brooke since the Mother’s Day rescue, but her father, Eric Poling, 27, of Norwalk, said Quigley would be happy to know that she is learning to swim.

Poling said Brooke is doing well and that she’s a “resilient” child.

“She misses her mom,” Poling said, his voice cracking. “She remembers everything, her mom, scraping on the rocks, bouncing up and down, and her mom going underwater.”

Poling, who has recently married, said that he and his wife, Nikki, and Brooke’s grandparents are trying to provide the love and support his daughter needs.

He praised the efforts of Quigley and others who responded to the emergency.

“What those guys did between them, you can’t say enough. The appreciation that I have for these people is unreal,” he said.

Poling criticized Laguna Beach officials for not having signs at the time of the tragedy warning of the danger of walking on the rocks.

“Have you ever been to the Kern River?” he said. “There’s a sign there telling the public of all the people who have died there. That’s an eye-catcher. It would seem to make sense to put something like that up.”

In the aftermath of that tragic day and other drownings, signs warning of the danger will be installed and lifeguard service will be extended, said Kenneth C. Frank, Laguna Beach’s city manager.

Frank said that during dangerous conditions in summer months, lifeguards erect barricades that prevent beach-goers from walking on the rocky areas.