Ryder Williams, a lifeguard at Seabright State Beach in Santa Cruz, Calif., helped a struggling boy, identified as 10-year-old Nathaniel, get back to shore after he lost his footing
Credit: California State Parks/Instagram
NEED TO KNOW
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The 16-year-old lifeguard who went viral on social media for pulling a young boy who was struggling to swim out of the water is speaking out about the rescue
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Ryder Williams, a lifeguard at Seabright State Beach in Santa Cruz, Calif., helped a struggling boy, identified as 10-year-old Nathaniel, get back to shore after he lost his footing
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“This is my job and I love what I do,” the teen said. “I’m thankful to my fellow lifeguards who perform rescues just like this every day”
The 16-year-old lifeguard who went viral on social media for pulling a young boy who was struggling to swim out of the water is speaking out about the rescue.
In a video and a statement shared on the official California State Parks Instagram page on Saturday, Aug. 1, Ryder Williams, a lifeguard at Seabright State Beach in Santa Cruz, Calif., opened up about the July 25 rescue.
Williams recounted how he and another lifeguard helped the struggling boy, identified as 10-year-old Nathaniel, get back to shore.
According to the teen, he was standing at the waterline near Seabright’s Tower 2 when he “saw a child about 20 yards up from the tower lose his footing in ankle-deep water.”
“I radioed it in, threw my radio and sunglasses at the base of my tower as I ran toward the kid,” he shared in the post’s caption. “I put my fins on my wrist, popped my buoy and entered the water to get a hold of the child.”
The teen said he couldn’t get a tube to the boy and wasn’t able to pull him out of the rough waves “because he was limp and the waves were pushing so hard.”
“As I grab the child, he goes limp, so I’m thinking about if he’s unconscious or not, that I really need to go in,” Williams recalled in the clip.
The viral video of the incident shows Williams bear-hugging Nathaniel as he attempted to bring him to shore despite large waves crashing around the pair, some of which reached several feet. At one point, the teen could even be seen taking the brunt of a large wave before resurfacing.
Williams said he was hit with two or three more waves and was focused on keeping Nathaniel out of the water before another lifeguard, identified as Aaron Bohnen, got in the water to help.
“The whole time I was thinking, ‘I just need to hold my position until my partner can get here because I’m not going to be able to get him out on my own,’ ” Williams explained.
“My partner mostly takes over holding the child because at this point, my arms were very exhausted from holding on,” Williams recalled. “I still support him as much as I can as we drag him out of the water.”
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The teen said that he and Bohnen got Nathaniel safely back to shore and used a medical kit to help treat his injuries — and soon after, Williams was back to work “making more rescues later that day.”
The California State Parks previously said in a statement that the boy did not sustain any serious injuries, and he was evaluated by paramedics before being released, according to NBC Bay Area.
Credit: santacruznow/instagram
“I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to return the child to his family safely,” Williams wrote in the post’s caption, shared in honor of International Lifeguard Appreciation Day. “This is my job and I love what I do. I’m thankful to my fellow lifeguards who perform rescues just like this every day.”
Nathaniel’s father, Sumit Rai, previously told The Associated Press that he was grateful to the lifeguard for saving his son from drowning.
“He ran into that water despite those conditions that are deadly,” Rai told the outlet. “You have 10-foot waves; you have riptides and currents coming in. It is not safe for him to go into that water. So he’s risking his own safety.”
The father added that he has since reached out to Williams and hopes to thank him directly. “What he did, I can never, ever repay,” he said. “I’m forever grateful.”
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