Boy OK after being pulled out of canal
By Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer
Fear is all Doriann Agbayani felt at 1:45 a.m. yesterday when she awoke to find her front door ajar and no sign of her 10-year-old son.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
Her anxiety was fueled by the fact that her son, Isaiah, suffers from autism.
Doriann Agbayani says she thanks God someone was there for her son, Isaiah, when he fell into a canal near their Waipahu home.
After checking the back yard where he likes to dig in the dirt, Agbayani contacted her mother, then called 911. After giving Isaiah's description to police, Agbayani learned that a boy matching her son's description had fallen into a drainage canal near their Waipahu home.
"He doesn't know danger," Agbayani said. "He doesn't know you're not supposed to jump into the water."
After police received a call from a resident near the stream who said he heard a loud splash followed by barking dogs, HPD officer Shayne Sesoko, 38, was sent to investigate a little after 2:10 a.m.
Sesoko arrived to find Isaiah flailing in the canal's murky brown water.
Because of his autism, Isaiah has difficulty speaking and could not cry out for help.
Sesoko, with the help of a nearby resident, threw a discarded mattress box spring into the canal for the boy to grab. Isaiah held onto the box spring, but it was sucked into the swirling water and sank.
At that point, Sesoko said, the boy began slipping under water for longer periods. Sesoko removed his shirt, shoes, belt and Kevlar vest and attempted a rescue.
"I knew he wasn't going to make it so I just jumped in," Sesoko said.
The canal is usually dry but Sesoko jumped into water running 7 to 8 feet. Sesoko is 5 feet 7. When he could touch the bottom, his feet kept getting stuck in the muck.
After paddling out to the floundering boy, Sesoko said Isaiah fought with him as he tried to keep the boy above water.
"It was too deep for me to swim so I kept telling him to swim to the other side. But he didn't understand," Sesoko said. "I knew someone was going to come sooner or later but it crossed my mind: how was I going to get out?"
Officer Tim Tenney said he was patrolling the freeway near 'Aiea when he was sent to help Sesoko.
He said when he got to the scene, Sesoko and the boy had been in the water for almost 10 minutes.
"When I saw them treading water and go under, and they went under twice, the boy was physically struggling with him (Sesoko)," said Tenney, a 35-year-old Mililani resident. "I could see that Shayne was visibly tired."
Seeing Tenney lying on his stomach on top of the concrete wall on the side of the stream, Sesoko began to push the 70-pound Isaiah toward Tenney's outstretched hand.
Because of the boy's size and the rushing current, Sesoko had to submerge himself beneath Isaiah, and push him up against the wall where Tenney was waiting.
"I pulled up as Shayne pushed," Tenney said.
Isaiah escaped the incident unharmed.
"I thank God that someone was there for him and everything worked out OK," his mother said.
Reach Peter Boylan at 535-8110 or pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.
