Lifeguards Plan Tribute to Ocean Lover

In a ceremony to celebrate the ocean culture that Dana Ambrose loved, 150 lifeguards will paddle out beyond the surf off San Clemente State Beach on Saturday to say goodbye to the young woman, who was killed two weeks ago in a car accident in Honolulu.

“She loved the beach,” Rod Ambrose said of his daughter, who was 19 when she died Oct. 7 after being broadsided as she drove home from work. “I think it’s just what she would have wanted.”

A 1999 graduate of San Clemente High School, where she was an honor student and on the swimming and cross-country teams, Dana Ambrose moved to Hawaii a year ago to attend Leeward Community College. She had just received notice of a $4,800 scholarship to attend the University of Hawaii, where she planned to study art, her father said. When she was killed, she was driving home from a night shift at a restaurant.

The driver who struck her was Clyde S. Arakawa, a Honolulu police officer off duty at the time. He was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving and negligent homicide, but was later released on bail. No charges have been filed pending the outcome of an investigation, said Bryan Wauke, a spokesman for the Honolulu Police Department.

Friends in Hawaii remembered the young woman at a memorial service in Hawaii, her father said. Now her family hopes to do the same for her in Orange County.

“For every person she knew in Hawaii, she knew a hundred here,” Rod Ambrose said of his daughter, who worked summers as a San Clemente lifeguard beginning at age 15. “We want them to remember her the way she was--her smile, the kindness that she offered people, how she touched them in whatever way she could.”

A service is set for 11 a.m. Saturday at Calvary Chapel in Capistrano Beach, followed by a reception and the paddle-out at 1 p.m., when lifeguards will sprinkle Ambrose’s ashes in the water off San Clemente State Beach.