honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, March 17, 2003

'Coastie' from Nu'uanu saves girl

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

Coast Guardsman Ikaika Lewis from Nu'uanu says it's no big thing.

1997 Kalani High graduate Ikaika Lewis, decided to "shape up" by joining the Coast Guard when he learned he was going to be a father. On Jan. 18, he rescued a girl in California.

Letty Wong

"The Coast Guard saves the lives of 19 people every day — day in, day out," the 23-year-old Kalani High School graduate stationed in San Diego says.

But it was a big thing for the 15-year-old girl whom Lewis pulled from chilly 8-foot surf in California's Mission Bay on Jan. 18.

And Lewis' boss says it's a big thing, too.

Coast Guard Chief J.E. Savinski, the officer in charge of Coast Guard Station San Diego, commended Lewis for "heroic actions," which saved the girl's life.

"Coasties" usually do their courageous work as a team, and Lewis has helped pull his share of capsized yachtsmen into his unit's small boat.

But on that stormy Saturday in January, Coast Guard Fireman E-2 Lewis was pretty much on his own.

On the beach outside his rented home, Lewis saw the girl struggling with her surfboard about 40 yards from shore. A few minutes later, she was 50 yards out. When she got to 75 yards offshore, she began to scream.

"I just shed my shirt, dropped my wallet on the sand, and went in after her," Lewis said.

It took Lewis, a former amateur surfing competitor in Hawai'i, two or three minutes of hard swimming to get to the girl.

"She was just really frightened, but fortunately we go through training for this, and I calmed her down and told her things would be fine," he said.

The key, the one-time North Shore tournament surfer said, was that the girl had her surfboard.

"If she hadn't had a board, I would have thought twice," he said.

He might have thought twice, too, about the temperature of the water, a numbing 53 degrees, about 20 degrees colder than the Hawai'i waves Lewis grew up in.

"I'd never rescued someone myself where I had to go into the water. Coast Guard boat drivers are the best in the world, and we try to do it from the boat whenever we can because it's safer for us and for them," he said.

Lewis got the girl onto her board, climbed on behind her, and began paddling down the coast to a point where the rip tide weakened and he was able to paddle to shore.

"It was kind of sweet," Lewis said. "She ... kind of threw this huge hug around me."

End of story? Boy rescues girl?

Not quite. There is another girl involved.

That's Kili, Lewis' daughter, who just turned 1-year-old last month.

Kili is the reason Lewis went into the Coast Guard.

"I graduated from Kalani in 1997 and just hung around and surfed for a couple years," Lewis said.

Lewis' mother, Letty Wong, and his stepfather, Percy Wong, watched Lewis drift for a while.

"He was always kind of a gregarious kid," said Wong. "I always felt he had the abilities, but never showed his academic potential, had most of his successes in athletics."

It was when he learned he was going to be a father that Lewis decided to join the Coast Guard.

"I decided to shape up because I wanted to support my daughter," he said. He joined the Coast Guard in January 2002, and has been on duty since, away from Hawai'i, except for one week when he got to meet his little girl.

"I've kind of thought about it, the idea that if it weren't for Kili I wouldn't have been there in San Diego that day to help that girl," Lewis said.

"And I know if my daughter was in trouble, and someone had a chance to save her," said Lewis, "I would want them to give 100 percent."

Reach Walter Wright at wwright@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8054.