MILLER AWARDED MEDAL OF VALOR FOR TWO RESCUES
Some of California’s top lifeguards, as well as State Parks officials, local first responders, Mendocino County’s new Sheriff, plus many family and friends, honored one of their own at a rare ceremony at Russian Gulch Jan. 11.
Ean Miller, a State Parks lifeguard for the past three years, was the focus of the proceedings, receiving a United States Lifesaving Association Medal of Valor for two rescues within three weeks of each other in 2018: one in darkened, stormy waters off of Westport’s rocky cliffs, the other amid the booming, razor-edged coves and sea caves of Mendocino Bay.
Lives hung in the balance both times; local fire department and ambulance crews played vital roles. But, as California State Parks Southern District Chief Brian Ketterer put it Saturday, Miller “was the one who threw himself into the ocean.”
Miller himself smiled and didn’t have much to say about his deeds on Nov. 29 and Dec. 18, 2018. As a friend remembered, the San Diego-bred lifeguard recounted his life-saving in Westport as “just a rescue”.
But as many noted Saturday, two people are walking around today who most certainly would not be here if it wasn’t for Miller’s valor.
According to the United States Lifeguard Association, the Medal of Valor is given to those who “show conclusive evidence that the person performing the act voluntarily risked their own life to an extraordinary degree in saving, or attempting to save, the life of another person, or voluntarily sacrificed themselves in a heroic manner for the benefit of others.”
Speakers at Russian Gulch Saturday night strove to define ‘valor,’ and what Miller accomplished — more than bravery. One fellow lifeguard called it “something that the rest of us don’t know if we would do in the same situation”.
In Miller’s case, that included, on Nov. 29, Miller went over the edge of a bluff into Mendocino Bay’s spray and roar to pull out a surfer stranded among the rocks.
“I saw his head poke out over the cliff” Miller’s gratefully-alive surfer recalled Saturday. “I thought he was going to turn around and walk away.”
Less than three weeks later, on Dec. 15, he swam into dark surf and rocks off the Westport bluffs, with just his surfboard and a glo-stick, and found a woman unconscious in the water. He brought her back to shore and, with the help of the Westport and Mendocino fire departments, revived her. She made a full recovery.
Saturday’s ceremony was attended by a large group of family and friends as well as a contingent of local and state officials, including newly-sworn-in Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall; members of the Mendocino, Westport and Albion fire departments and Mendocino Coast District Hospital Ambulance crew; State Parks Mendocino Sector Superintendent Terry Bertles and others.
Local Parks Supervisor Rex and others took the opportunity to advocate for the North Coast’s unique lifeguard program, which is held together by a small, tight-knit, cost-effective crew but protects thousands along a perilous shoreline every year. Most of the lifeguards’ time, Rex and others noted, is spent on prevention: talking to people on the beaches and bluffs, passing on a little bit of information about the ocean and the many ways it can kill you, delivered with the unsurpassed charm of a real live California surfer.
Ketterer, State Parks Southern Division Chief, recalled how he came up from the San Diego beaches many years ago to see if he wanted to do some lifeguarding on Mendocino County’s rocky shores. After spending a night in a trailer that shook from the shock of surf a half-mile away, and surveying the dangerousunder-all-conditions shoreline for a day, Ketterer said, he headed straight back to San Diego.
Miller, Ketterer noted, stayed, and saved lives.