A typical day at the beach recently turned into a scene straight out of “Baywatch” for two junior lifeguards in Huntington Beach, California.
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Fifteen-year-olds Jake Shaffer and Aidan Arie have been in an elite program for junior lifeguards since they were both 9 years old. Despite all those years of experience, what they went through recently was definitely a first for the teenagers.
They were on the beach for a swim competition when a small plane towing an advertisement crashed into the surf before their very eyes.
Aidan and Jake had only seconds to register what was happening. They have trained for just about every potential disaster scenario imaginable – except a plane crash on the beach! That didn’t stop them from grabbing their body boards and bolting into the surf.
“Jake goes, ‘OK, run!'” Aidan recalled. “So I start running towards the water line where the plane is and he grabs a board.”
The pilot was able to crawl out of the plane, but he was in shock and suffering from a head injury. Jake went straight to him and put the dazed man onto his board. Meanwhile, Aidan scanned the perimeter of the accident to look for potential hazards to rescuers.
“When I got 15 to 20 feet away from the plane, I just started looking around and making sure the whole scene was safe and everyone was OK, because I knew Jake had the guy handled,” Aidan said.
Jake says he was concerned about the pilot because he wasn’t answering any of his questions. He’d just gone through a training session about keeping victim’s talking and obtaining as much information as possible, but the pilot was mute with shock.
“We were just going over these things in captain’s about trying to learn information about the person,” Jake said. “He didn’t want to talk. He was sitting there frozen on the board.”
The pilot was taken to the hospital and is expected to recover. Meanwhile, the FAA is investigating what caused the plane to crash.
Get this: After they rescued the pilot, Jake and Aidan continued in the swim competition and wound up winning first place in the relay race! All in a day’s work for these brave teens!
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