Long Beach Man Lives to Tell Near Drowning Experience

Ed Ferko stepped into a notorious spot in Long Beach, one where many have reportedly lost their lives. He thought his relatives would watch him die.

It was Memorial Day and Ferko had barbequed all afternoon at his East Broadway home, and then took a stroll on the beach with his wife, Annabel, and his two 4-year-old grandsons, just after 6 p.m. when lifeguards are off duty. While Ferko sat and watched his family frolic along the shore, he noticed a 20-something woman crying nearby.

When she tried to stand up, she fell in an intoxicated stupor, but was eventually able to walk into the ocean wearing a bikini. One minute she was up to her knees in the water, he noticed, the next she was in over her head, her arms flailing as she drifted toward a jetty. Many people on the crowded beach stood and pointed at her, but none moved to save her.

“So here I am in shorts and a T-shirt and I have my sneakers on, and I don’t think about taking my sneakers off — I just run into the water,” Ferko recalled.

After his initial burst of energy swimming in the water, Ferko, 49, was soon reminded that he’s no longer a kid and not a swimmer. “I had about a minutes worth of adrenalin but then I’m kicking,” he said.

Bobbing under the water and short of breath, the woman fought him off when he tried to grab her, but he wrapped his arms around her waist and swam on his back toward the shore, battling the splashing waves and rip current. Finally, he reached a point where they could stand with their heads above water, catching their collective breaths. Then terror struck.

“Right at that spot, we took another step toward the beach and there is a drop off, about six feet,” Ferko remembered. “That’s when I knew we were in trouble.”  

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Paul Gillespie, chief of Long Beach lifeguards, explained that at Long Beach Boulevard beach there is a large hole near the jetty, and on days when rip currents are kicking, conditions only turn more hazardous.

“It’s a very treacherous position there,” said Gillespie, who reported a boy in distress in the same spot was pulled to safety by a police officer two hours later. “We’ve lost a lot of people who have drowned at that jetty.”

As Ferko went under and the woman bounced off his head, he was exhausted and lost his breath. “It was like a moment of adrenaline and then 10 minutes of terror,” he said.

Then he spotted lifeguards and an ambulance. Two lifeguards with orange flotation devices soon swam out and pulled them to shore. “Once I saw them I thought I had a shot,” he said.

Once ashore, Ferko was immediately fitted with an oxygen mask and his grandsons were “freaking out,” he said.

“He got caught in the rip tide,” Gillespie said. “I don’t know how the guy did it with his sneakers on.”

Ferko was transported to Long Beach Medical Center, where he rested with oxygen overnight. He later learned that the woman he tried to rescue was a 23-year-old from Oceanside.

At the hospital, she had argued with police and his grandsons and allegedly struck a nurse. “She went batty,” said Ferko, who noted that police told him that she was likely suicidal. 

Following the ordeal, Ferko could think only that he was thankful to be alive, his family was with him and everyone from the lifeguards to the EMTs to hospital staff treated him spectacularly, he said.

Later, he got slapped with a $7,000 hospital bill, since he had been unemployed for 18 months and was without health insurance. He doesn’t regret what he did.

“The police said, ‘Look, this girl was a knucklehead, but you did the right thing,’” he said. “You were the only one on the beach that moved to help her.”

Now he’s working again, having landed a job two days after Memorial Day with a credit card processing company, and he’s gained some perspective on life. 

“It was almost my last day,” he recalled. “What do you think? I’m thankful I have all my kids and grandchildren. You know, every day is a little more exciting than it was before, that’s for sure.”