Doctor with Lodi roots dies while surfing
Psychiatrist Dr. Toren Stearns was the 2006 valedictorian of Tokay High School
OTTER ROCK, Ore. — A 30year-old doctor from Corvallis died Saturday in a tragic surfing accident after he paddled singlehandedly into a storm-swept ocean.
Dr. Toren Stearns, a Tokay High School alumnus, was pronounced dead at Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital after rescuers found his body floating 200 feet offshore from a popular surfing beach on the south side of Cape Foulweather, near the Devil’s Punchbowl.
Senior Chief Chris Hinote of U.S. Coast Guard Station Depoe Bay dispatched a 47foot motor lifeboat and led a ground party to the scene after an eyewitness called 911 to report a surfer in distress at 3:30 p.m. He also called for a Newport-based rescue helicopter.
“He was floating in the second generation of breakers,” recalled Hinote, saying that an unidentified surfer was the first to reach the unconscious victim and struggled to hold him as the MH-65 chopper lowered a rescue swimmer. “The swimmer tried to hoist him, but it was too rough. After two attempts, he and the ‘Good Samaritan’ put the body on the board and brought him in.”
Stearns was loaded aboard the helicopter along with paramedics from PacWest Ambulance who continued efforts to resuscitate him during the short flight to the Newport hospital.
Because Stearns was alone, however, first responders and surfing experts say all the details of the case may never be known. They wonder why, for example, Stearns became separated from his surfboard.
“That’s the last thing you want to do is get separated from your flotation,” said bigwave surfer John Forse, who bears the scars of a 1998 hark attack off Gleneden Beach. “But you have to ask, what was he doing out there in the first place?”
The U.S. Coast Guard recorded swells at 12 feet with 13-second intervals on Saturday, conditions that barred surfboard rentals at nearby Ossie’s Surf Shop.
“We don’t rent when the swells are over 10 feet,” said shopkeeper Brian Sudlow, who noted that a powerful rip tide was also in evidence that day. “If it’s anything over eight feet you should be a pretty experienced surfer. It was just messy that day, with bad winds.”
Stearns, a highly-regarded psychiatrist in his fourth year of residency at Samaritan Health Services in Corvallis, was from Lodi, where he was the valedictorian of his graduating class at Tokay High School in 2006.
“He was an outstanding student, one of those brilliant minds,” Tokay principal Erik Sandstrom. “He was our valedictorian. He was a bright kid, just driven to be good at everything he did.”
While at Tokay, Stearns was a member of the school’s Science Olympiad and Science Bowl teams, along with the Academic Decathlon. He founded the Brain Power Club in his senior year, which brought students together to help one another with college applications and testing.
Stearns credited the science competitions and Tokay’s Advanced Placement biology program with inspiring him to pursue a career in medicine.
“It’s really sad to hear (of his passing). He would have been a great asset to the profession and to others,” Sandstrom said.
After graduating from Tokay, Stearns enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied neuroscience as an undergraduate before attending the medical school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
“He was a critical member of our psychiatric team,” commented Dr. Sugat Patel, director of medical education at the Samaritan hospital in Corvallis. “His loss is not only felt here but in the psychiatric community at large.”
There was some evidence that Stearns was a novice surfer. On Monday, Depoe Bay surfer Stanley Zitnick was at Otter Rock while friends of Stearns held a memorial service. Some mourners wearing hospital badges prayed from the rocky headland overlooking the accident scene while two of Stearns’ surfing buddies paddled out.
“The guys that went into the water knew him,” recalled Zitnick, who was driven back by the “gnarly” waves when he tried to surf Otter Rock on Dec. 1, the day Stearns died. “They told him not to go out. He was a beginner, but they said it was some kind of ‘courage’ test, where he was facing his fears and building his confidence.”
Stearns took his dog surfing on the fateful day. The dog, a male Shiba Inu, was found on the beach by a sheriff’s deputy and taken to Lincoln Co. Animal Shelter, which released the pet to the victim’s family the next day.
Surfing deaths are rare — only about 10 people die surfing annually among an estimated 23 million surfers worldwide. Authorities concur, however, that the young doctor was likely in over his head as he challenged conditions that drove other surfers ashore.
“This is number seven in 18 months,” Hinote said of the mounting tally of victims claimed by the ocean in his small operating area. “It was just another unfortunate incident that definitely could have been prevented. You’ve got to know your limitations.”