4 Lifeguards Are Honored for Rescue Attempt

The National Medal of Valor of the U.S. Lifesaving Assn. has been awarded to the four lifeguards who attempted to save a woman killed by a great white shark off Avila Beach in August and then recovered her body.

The four guards are Jeff Fesler and Tim Borland of the Port San Luis Harbor District, Billy Larsen, who worked for the city of Pismo Beach, and Rich Griguoli, a lifeguard for the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Griguoli and Larsen now live in Santa Barbara, while Fesler and Borland live in San Luis Obispo.

The four were competing in an early morning lifeguard competition near the pier at Avila Beach on Aug. 19 when they heard screams and saw a woman standing on the beach and pointing to the water. The four raced down the beach and into the water without lifesaving equipment in an effort to rescue Deborah Blanche Franzman, 50.

In a joint interview in August, the four lifeguards said that they did not know Franzman had been bitten until they arrived to find her face down in the water bleeding profusely. But all said they would have attempted the rescue anyway.

“We definitely looked at each other and we knew we had to get out of there as soon as possible,” Griguoli said.

The four pulled Franzman to shore, but she never regained consciousness. Experts said she had been bitten by a 15- to 18-foot white shark and had died of severe blood loss because it had struck her femoral artery and vein. Franzman’s death was only the 10th fatal shark attack off the California coast since the early 1950s.