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Ralph Pic Of The Week

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AS TOLD TO ME VIA EMAIL. What a Great Thanksgiving Surf Story.
Good Job Mike, Billy and Dougie!

Ralph, the guy who got in trouble at the Wall became unconscious while surfing near
10th street, and it is suspected he had a seizure.

He went down about 100 yards between me and Bill Stecchi. When the guy’s friend started
screaming from shore, Bill and I both looked and saw an upside down board and a black hump
in the water, waves washing over him. Bill and I paddled from opposite directions and flipped him
over – he was blue, bulging eyes, lungs full of water, foaming at the mouth and not really breathing.
We worked our way in as fast as we could.

Bill held the guy face up/back down on his board, while I gave him mouth to mouth and covered
his face when the sets washed over us. I learned later that Bill also shielded the back of my head
from flying boards while I gave breaths. It took several minutes to get in. Some other unknown
surfers helped push us in. We eventually pulled him onto the rocks. On shore, we then got the
guy’s lungs draining. Doug Fresh relayed instructions from medical personnel through a cell phone.

Several unknown surfers helped us protect this guy from falling on the rocks as he started to move
incoherently. Several of us then helped the medics get him from the rocks into the ambulance.
He was taken to Exeter Hospital and placed in ICU. His friend, whom I reached by calling the
hospital, told me yesterday that he is sedated and on a breathing tube for a couple of days due
to the trauma to his lungs, but is expected to recover fully with no brain damage. His friend said
that we had all saved the man’s life. I am still in a state of disbelief and shock.

I want to thank Bill Stecchi and Doug Fresh and the others who scrambled to save this man, whose
name I still don’t know. We all have to carefully watch each other’s backs out there, and we have to
move extremely fast when someone goes down. It only takes seconds to drown. Strangely enough,
Bill and I were both ocean lifeguards for many years in the 80’s – he at Salisbury Beach and me at
Rye Beach. Fate put us both on opposite sides, and within 100 yards of this incident.

Mike Ricker

Greenland, NH