Surfers Jump Into Action To Save Swimmers Caught In Rip Currents At Nobadeer

Island resident Tyler Herrick was posted up at Nobadeer Beach on Monday attempting to enjoy a rare day off from his job as a bartender at Cisco Brewers at the end of the runway and immediately noticed there was a nasty rip current out in front of where he was sitting.

“There was a considerable amount of surge from the ground swell, so the shore break and the waves were pretty large,” Herrick said. “Luckily, I had borrowed a surfboard because mine was stolen off my suburban at work two weeks ago, and had my eye on the water from the beach when I wasn’t surfing. It was hot out so there were plenty of people going in and out of the water all day. What a lot of people didn’t know was how strong the rips were & how quickly they were getting sucked out to sea.”

Herrick made several water rescues on the day. The first one made was a mother and son. Herrick said the boy was no older than 12 or 13 years old and when he approached them the mom was choking water, and the boy was starting to panic.

“They must have been sucked out close to 100 yards off the beach,” Herrick recalled. “I was able to calm them down and swim them in while they caught their breath on the board. The mom broke into tears and said she thought they weren’t going to make it. They hugged and cried on the beach. It was an eye-opener for even the bystanders. I had the chance to fill them in on how rip currents work, how to spot them, and how to safely manage them.”

Shortly after this first rescue, Herrick noticed five college-aged kids who got sucked out to sea in a similar fashion.

“Two of them were strong swimmers and were able to get in, but when you see people on their back trying to catch their breath in between overhead set waves breaking on them, I knew they were in trouble,” Herrick said. “By the time I got out to these three girls, one of them was yelling for help. She was choking water and coughing, full panic, and absolutely exhausted. I had to grab her and assist her onto the board and convince her that she was now safe and I wasn’t going to let her die, which she repeatedly said she was going to.

“When I got them back to the beach the other two who managed to get in without assistance took her back to their camp, but she was weak and visibly upset,” Herrick continued. “There were many close calls where I had gotten out of my chair and grabbed by board and watched with a close eye, but luckily there were a lot of good swimmers out there. I even assisted the lifeguards with a mother/daughter duo and although we watched the mom, she made progress and made it to shore – albeit very exhausted and spooked by the situation. She said her daughter is a fish, but the lifeguard and I determined that a wellness check was necessary, and since he already had three guards actively in the water, I elected to go out there myself. Turns out she is a former Nantucket swim team member, and I stayed close by as she swam in (per guard and my request).”

Herrick said while his day at the beach was more chaotic than he anticipated, he was happy to know he could be there to help swimmers in need.

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a relaxing day off, but I was super fortunate to have been there because those people didn’t have much more time out there,” he said.

But Herrick wasn’t the only selfless beachgoer to spring into action on Monday to assist a swimmer in need. For the past two weeks, Ryder Burliss has been on the island with her family enjoying their annual trip to the island where she learned to surf and has continued to do so for much of her life.

Now based on the west coast in San Diego, Burliss has surfed in many rough conditions and considers the south shore of the island some of the hardest.

“It's surprising that so many people go out in these insane conditions," Burliss said. "The Atlantic here on the south shore is no joke because of all the rip currents ripping up."

Burliss said as she was surfing at Nobadeer on Monday, she noticed the rip currents to be rough. She said she saw a man on a boogie board and immediately became concerned about his situation as he went farther and farther from the shore.

"Usually when you see people on boogie boards, you don't typically tend to look as closely as the swimmers because you're like, 'Oh they have floatation devices. They’ll be fine,” Burliss said. “But I saw this guy on a boogie board getting sucked way out, like 200 yards out, out of this rip current. I saw the lifeguards on the shore, and they looked like they were coming into the water, so I was like okay they're coming but I'm not sure if they're going to get there fast enough because he's really far out and he's only going to get farther. So I was like alright I'll go check on him.

"So I paddled over, and then I got within like five feet and was like, "Hey, would you like some help?' And he said yes I would like some help. I'm getting pretty tired,” Burliss continued.

Burliss said she calmly spoke to the man to ensure him the lifeguards were coming and had him grab onto her leash on the back of her surfboard. She had him kick as much as he could because of how tired his arms were.

"I kind of trailed him in paddling in and was just kind of talking, keeping him calm, telling some jokes,” she said. “He told me I was calm, and I explained how I have been surfing here for so long and been caught in these rip currents a few times. One of the craziest parts was being in the water and seeing all of these different situations going on and all of the lifeguards having to jump into action. It was almost like every three minutes lifeguards were going out to help people. I was just thinking to myself how these guys must be exhausted. Right before I helped this man out, the lifeguards had just completed a rescue of two little kids, brought them back to shore, and then immediately got back into the water to come out to us.”