A LIFELINE TO PROTECT OTHERS
Fremont boy’s grieving family helps to bring life ring stations to beaches
For 15 minutes last January, Sharmistha Chakraborty helplessly watched her 12-year-old son, Arunay Pruthi, struggle to keep his head above water as cold, powerful waves pulled him farther out to sea.
The Fremont mother has since come to believe that Arunay might have survived being carried off by a sneaker wave south of Half Moon Bay if there had been a life ring buoy available with at least 100 feet of rope.
“I am certain that if the beachgoers had a ring that day, they could have just thrown it out to him,” Chakraborty said, explaining that she saw her son only about 50 feet from the shore, though he was quickly drifting away. “If there was a rope, he would be here with us today.“
Since losing Arunay, Chakraborty, her husband, Tarun Pruthi, and a coalition of family friends have launched a foundation in the boy’s name, dedicated to protecting others from being swept away by dangerous waves during visits to Northern California beaches. Arunay perished from a sneaker wave, so-called because these waves of unexpected size and power strike without warning.
The Arunay Foundation helped raise money and worked with the San Mateo County Harbor District and other government agencies to install four life ring stations at beaches in and around Half Moon Bay.
A ceremony to dedicate those stations took place Wednesday at Pillar Point Harbor. About 200 people, including dignitaries from multiple agencies, came to support Arunay’s family and to honor the memory of the “loving, handsome and athletic” seventh grader who loved soccer and movies, as family friend Vikram Saxena said at the ceremony.
“Inspired by the love, passion and concern shown by so many in the community, (Arunay’s parents) decided to channel their enormous grief and loss into an effort which can prevent such tragedies in the future,” Saxena said.
Working with Sea Valor, an organization that assisted with the search for Arunay, the foundation wants to help other communities make life ring stations available at beaches up and down the coast.
Each station consists of a preserver and rope stored on a tall wooden post. People on shore can grab the ring and toss it out to someone in the water, instead of trying to swim out themselves, which puts the rescuer at risk of drowning.
Arunay was swept out when he, his parents and family friend Sanjeev Kulkarni rushed into the ocean to retrieve Arunay’s 8-year-old brother, Siddhant, who had been playing near the water when the sneaker wave caught him.
Other beachgoers managed to pull Arunay’s parents and brother from the water, but Arunay slipped away past the line of breaking waves. Beachgoers quickly used tents, towels and other items to fashion a safety line that Arunay could hold onto until rescuers arrived, but their line wasn’t long enough to reach him, Kulkarni said.
The foundation’s mission includes raising public awareness of ocean hazards. Signs posted at the top of each life ring station refer to recent fatalities and warn people: “Never turn your back on the ocean.”
The installation comes at a time when ocean turbulence generally begins its rise. From November through February, high surf and high waves are “typical,” said Warren Blier, science officer for the San Francisco Bay Area Forecast Office of the National Weather Service.
Arunay’s death occurred during a particularly deadly two-month period in which eight people died on Northern California beaches between December 2020 and January 2021. Authorities attributed the deaths, which included a Petaluma father and his two young children, to several unusual factors: a high number of sneaker waves, unseasonably warm weather and families flocking to beaches to escape COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
On Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Arunay’s family joined three others in their pandemic bubble for an outing to Cowell Ranch State Beach, just south of Half Moon Bay. It was sunny with temperatures in the 70s. The ocean didn’t appear to be especially choppy. Just before the big wave hit, Arunay was playing with a Frisbee on the beach.
But the weather service had issued high surf advisories for much of December and January. In a tweet on Jan. 16, two days before Arunay went missing, the service warned that “the coastline is a dangerous place.”
“We’ve heard from so many people, saying, ‘I didn’t know this could happen,’ ” Tarun Pruthi said. “Neither did we. That’s what we curse ourselves for. It’s not like we were swimming. We were just playing near the water.”
Amid their grief, the Pruthis learned what many may not fully appreciate:
The geography of the region’s beautiful beaches contributes to their hazards.
Unlike the flat, broad beaches of Southern California, many in the north
are steep, rocky or isolated. Cowell Ranch State Beach is only accessible by descending a long flight of stairs from a tall cliff.
Even activities that seem safe, such as playing near the surf line, wading or climbing on rocks, can be risky, said Douglas Johnson, information officer for California State Parks, and few Northern California beaches are regularly patrolled by lifeguards.
Unfortunately, in the eight months after Arunay’s loss, six more people drowned or went missing in the ocean. That includes three fatalities over a three-day period in September at beaches in Santa Cruz County, just south of Davenport. One was a 17-year-old boy who went missing while body surfing at Laguna Creek beach on Sept. 20.
What’s notable about these three fatalities is that nothing “particularly dramatic” was going on with the weather or the surf, Blier said. People still need to be careful, even in ideal weather conditions, because “things can go wrong anytime they are near the ocean,” he said.
The Pruthi family and their partners realize that four life stations in Half Moon Bay may not seem like much when Bay Area residents can visit any number of beaches along hundreds of miles of coastline up to the Oregon border.
“We aim to cover as many beaches as possible,” Kulkarni said. “Four are just the beginning.”