Lifeguard Team Gets a Special Visitor : Port Hueneme: Oxnard boy was in critical condition after his rescue from a riptide. But five days later he's back at the beach to meet the four who saved him.

Lifeguard Team Gets a Special Visitor : Port Hueneme: Oxnard boy was in critical condition after his rescue from a riptide. But five days later he’s back at the beach to meet the four who saved him.

By JEFF MEYERS

July 24, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The last time lifeguards at Port Hueneme Beach saw little Fitzroye Shoy, the 10-year-old Oxnard youth was being carried unconscious into an ambulance, an oxygen mask strapped to his face and paramedics scrambling to keep him alive.

As the ambulance left the beach with sirens and lights clearing the way, the lifeguards who had tried to save the child from drowning knew he was fighting an uphill battle, with brain damage a possible outcome if he survived.

“It didn’t look good,” lifeguard Dan Gildea said. “He was in the jaws of death.”

But Fitzroye managed to escape. Five days after the lifeguards pulled him lifeless from a riptide’s clutches, he walked into their lifeguard station, a healthy kid with a big smile.

“You don’t know how good it felt to see him,” lifeguard Derrick Peister said. “We were all pretty emotional when this thing happened.”

Peister and the other lifeguards gave Fitzroye a tour of the station Friday, presenting him with an official lifeguard uniform and a certificate to attend their junior lifeguard program.

But Fitzroye may not be going in the water for a while. At least not in Port Hueneme.

“It’s scary,” he said. If he does swim in the ocean again, “It won’t be at this here beach.”

Fitzroye was born in the Virgin Islands, where waves are usually small. Although he had been to Port Hueneme Beach many times, waves were as high as 10 feet and riptides were especially strong Sunday when he arrived in the early afternoon with his aunt, two older sisters and two cousins. “We had the red flags up,” Gildea said. “It was really dangerous.”

About 3:30 p.m., Fitzroye waded waist-deep into the surf and was knocked down by a wave. When lifeguard Jonas White saw him from a tower, Fitzroye was floating 50 yards off the beach, face down. White signaled for help and went after the boy. Crashing through the roiling water, White initially could not see him.

“How I found him, I’ll never know,” White said.

Fitzroye was about 100 yards from shore when White swam up to him. He had a pulse but wasn’t breathing. Treading water, White applied mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while fighting the treacherous riptide. Within minutes, he was joined in the effort by lifeguards Chris Moody, Keith Cody and Peister.

A wave momentarily broke their grip on Fitzroye, but Peister managed to hold on to his ankle.

Taking turns giving him mouth-to-mouth as they slowly battled their way to the beach, the lifeguards were able restart his breathing.

Although a Ventura County Fire Department crew arrived only minutes after the emergency call went out, Fitzroye’s condition began “deteriorating slightly,” Peister said.

Fitzroye’s mother, Ruth Lincoln, beat the ambulance to St. John’s Regional Medical Center. Her son arrived unconscious and in critical condition, but about 8:30 that night, he opened his eyes in disbelief. He couldn’t remember anything about the incident except waking up once on the beach and now, in a hospital ?

“There were two doctors and two ladies around me and this IV in my arm and this thing in my nose,” Fitzroye said. “And I couldn’t breath ‘cause this other thing was in my mouth.”

Fitzroye was allowed to leave the hospital Tuesday and by Friday was chipper enough to meet the lifeguards who saved his life.

Fortunately for him, nearly all 14 lifeguards at the beach are qualified emergency medical technicians trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation. But none of the four who jumped in the water after Fitzroye had ever used mouth-to-mouth on a real person, “let alone a young kid,” Peister said.

Dr. Fred Walker, Ventura County assistant medical examiner, said he was “mildly surprised” to hear that Fitzroye is back to normal.

“Young people are more resilient than adults,” he said.

Fitzroye’s mother has another theory for her son’s recovery, saying: “He had an angel on his shoulder.”

Plus four guys named Jonas, Derrick, Chris and Keith.