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    Laguna Woods resident helps save friend’s life in ocean rescue
    • March 9, 2025

    By Anita Gosch and Laylan Connelly

    Orange County Register/Laguna Woods Globe

    Christmas morning last year was windy and chilly, with the sun making feeble attempts to peek out from behind the clouds. The waves at T-Street Beach in San Clemente were large but choppy.

    Still, Randy Cumming hoped to catch a few good ones on his bodyboard before he had to hustle off to a holiday dinner.

    For Cumming, a Laguna Woods resident since 2017 who grew up in Mission Viejo, the day started like so many others in his decades of bodyboarding at T-Street.

    Only this day turned out to be very different.

    • Randy Cumming sits with his sister, Pam Murray, inside their...

      Randy Cumming sits with his sister, Pam Murray, inside their Laguna Woods home. Cumming helped rescue his friend Olivier Eustache while the two were bodyboarding off San Clemente on Christmas Day.
      (Photo by Mark Rabinowitch, Contributing Photographer)

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    Randy Cumming sits with his sister, Pam Murray, inside their Laguna Woods home. Cumming helped rescue his friend Olivier Eustache while the two were bodyboarding off San Clemente on Christmas Day.
    (Photo by Mark Rabinowitch, Contributing Photographer)

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    After about two hours in the water, Cumming was tired and ready to leave, but he decided to wait just a bit longer to see if he could catch one last good wave.

    He saw his buddy Olivier Eustache, a Rancho Santa Margarita resident, paddle up from the south. Both were part of a close-knit group of 15 to 20 bodyboarders at T-Street.

    “Merry Christmas,” Cumming called out.

    “Merry Christmas,” Eustache called back.

    “That’s when I saw him roll over on his back,” Cumming said in a recent interview at his home.

    Cumming thought his friend was just resting on his board. But then he saw that Eustache’s eyes had rolled to the back of his head. He called out to him but got no response.

    “When I saw the whites of his eyes, I knew he was out,” Cumming said.

    He quickly paddled over, saw that his friend was unconscious and moved to hold Eustache’s head above the water.

    Cumming saw two surfers nearby and yelled to them for help. It turned out they were both former lifeguards, and they were there in 10 seconds, he said.

    They worked to get Eustache back to shore, with Cumming swimming backward for 300 yards while cradling his friend’s head.

    It was a full six minutes from the time that Cumming got to his buddy’s side to the time they made it to shore, he said. He heard later that by that time, Eustache’s heart had stopped beating.

    Nearly 20 people played a part in saving Eustache’s life that day. And they were all in the right place at the right time.

    “It all fit together like the pieces of a puzzle,” Cumming said.

    When they got to shore, “my part was done,” he said.

    The two nearby surfers and former lifeguards, Luke Overin and Daniel Richens, and local pro surfer Kade Matson helped pull Eustache to shore.

    Richens, a former State Parks lifeguard, took off Eustache’s fins and put them on his own feet to help his swimming strength and speed. Overin, a former San Clemente city lifeguard, lifted his surfboard above his head to signal to lifeguards that help was needed.

    Three other surfers in the water – pro surfers Sawyer Lindblad and David Economos and 13-year-old Ellis Avery – noticed the rescue in progress and paddled to the beach to get help.

    Avery, a junior lifeguard for five years, called 911 from the beach.

    San Clemente Marine Safety Officers Hayden Paul and Ian Burton rushed to action, helping to bring Eustache to the sand.

    Nathan Vandergast, a surfer from Oceanside, saw the rescue unfold from his parents’ patio above the surf break and called the lifeguard department.

    Paul and OCFA firefighter Sean Garvey, who happened to be watching the waves from a cliff above and rushed down to help, began administering CPR.

    Burton and Paul then used an Automatic External Defibrillator, or AED, to shock Eustache multiple times until his heart started beating again.

    Lifeguards, OCFA Station 60 firefighters and EMTs with Falck ambulance service all worked to stabilize Eustache.

    Eustache woke up six days later, on Dec. 31, with no recollection of what unfolded on Christmas Day. Doctors had no explanation for why the 49-year-old man’s heart stopped beating, but he now has a defibrillator implanted into his chest, just in case.

    Earlier this month, the nearly 20 fellow bodyboarders, surfers and first responders filled the San Clemente City Hall chambers to receive official recognition for their heroic lifesaving actions. They were handed plaques and the gift of gratitude for their quick-thinking efforts that saved Eustache’s life.

    “All of you are true heroes. You all worked as a team to save a fellow waterman,” said Marine Safety Chief Rod Mellott. “Without everyone’s effort, we wouldn’t be here today with Oli. You’re all heroes and deserve the recognition.”

    Eustache was also at the award ceremony.

    “Everybody played a role at the right time, at the right moment to pull me out of the water. Thank God and thanks to my angels, I’m here today,” he said, his arms stretched out to the long line of people credited with saving his life.

    Cumming was among those receiving the official recognition, plaques and the eternal gratitude of his friend. He still has a hard time believing how it all went down.

    “It’s weird,” he said in the interview. “You don’t really think – you just do it. I didn’t get frazzled until I got back to my car.”

    He never had an experience like he did that Christmas Day at T-Street Beach, he said, never even thought he would ever have such an experience.

    “I always figured it would be me, since I’m the old guy out there,” the 62-year-old said.

    “And if anything ever happened to me like what happened to my friend,” Cumming said, “just let me float out to sea.”

     

    ​ Orange County Register 

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