Surf turn strangers into friends
Saved - A woman rescued from perilous waves near the Lincoln City tracks down her rescuer -- and both take home a lesson ..... Becki Bozart stood in the surf at Lincoln City for about five minutes, her flip-flops in hand, enjoying the sun and clear blue sky. Then her feet got cold, and she decided it was time to return to work -- until a wave knocked her down. She fell in ankle-deep water and felt so stupid she quickly got up. But when she reached for the flip-flops ripped from her hands, a sliding sheet of seawater grabbed her ankles and dragged her 20 feet from shore.
What happened next was like nothing she'd ever experienced.
"I could see the shore but I couldn't get out of it," she recalls. "At first I was like, 'Oh, this is ridiculous,' but after a few minutes I started to panic and yell."
The water seemed to Bozart to be in two layers, the top pushing her toward the shore and the bottom, the stronger layer, tugging her out to sea. It spun her around and flipped her over. The waves kept pulling and pushing and sand got in her eyes and seawater poured into her mouth and nose. Her sodden sweater and jacket felt as though they were made of cement.
Bozart thought she was dying.
Then she heard a dog.
"Are you okay?" a stranger called.
Bozart couldn't see but said, "I can't get my feet under me."
The stranger, Joanne "Jody" Godsey, had been walking her black Labrador mix, Zoe, that Monday, May 1. Godsey, who lives in Otis, often drives to the beach to walk her dog and search for agates. Over time she has learned about dangerous waves. She is so accustomed to them that she listens to the waves as she walks, knowing a big one comes after a pause.
She didn't hesitate. Directly ahead, coming straight for them, were two big ones. If she didn't get Bozart out of the surf, Godsey worried the oncoming waves would bury both of them.
She grabbed Bozart's arm and dragged her toward shore. Safe from the approaching tide, she called 9-1-1 because Bozart's lips had turned purple. She was shivering head to toe and coughing up sand and water.
Two men came running from the Surftides Inn. One brought a blanket, and a woman appeared. Then came a man with a video camera.
Emergency workers arrived next and wrapped Bozart in warm blankets and laid her on a stretcher. She had so much sand in her eyes she couldn't see, and she left the beach without ever seeing the face of the stranger who'd saved her.
This is only one of many accidents that happen to people on the Oregon coast. Please let this be a lesson to you and your family that you don't become another victim of our sneaker waves!