Two additional rescues unfolded at one of Southern California’s best-known coastal swimming areas after people got into trouble near the cliffs, coming only days after video showed a teenager slamming into rocks after a cliff jump.
San Diego lifeguards rushed to Pappy’s Point at Sunset Cliffs shortly after 7:50 p.m. Tuesday when a man climbing along the cliff face fell and hit the rocks below, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.
The tense Sunset Cliffs rescue was captured on video as crews worked against the rugged shoreline and fading evening light.
Before rescuers reached him, an off-duty member of the US Coast Guard jumped into the ocean and helped keep the unidentified man above water until lifeguards and a rescue boat arrived to secure him.
Emergency crews then deployed a cable-haul system to lift the man out of the water. Paramedics treated him at the scene before he was taken to a nearby hospital with traumatic injuries that were not further detailed.
Footage from the operation showed rescuers rappelling down the steep cliff and into the surf, while emergency vehicles with flashing lights lined the area above.
Onlookers gathered along the cliffside, watching carefully as the high-angle rescue played out below them.
Around the same time, first responders were called to another nearby cliff rescue after a man suffered a leg injury, NBC San Diego reports.
Emergency crews were quickly able to locate the man, and he was airlifted to a local hospital with unspecified injuries.
An unidentified man had to be rescued from Pappy’s Point at Sunset Cliffs in San Diego on Tuesday after jumping from a high cliff into the ocean
Dramatic video of the rescue effort showed crews rappelling down the cliff and into the water to rescue the man, while emergency vehicles with their lights flashing were parked on the ground above
The two rescues on Tuesday came just days after a 17-year-old was filmed leaping off the rock at Sunset Cliffs and hitting the side of the rocks before falling into the water.
‘I slammed against the rock and I felt paralyzed and I couldn’t move,’ the unidentified teenager has since told Fox 5 San Diego about his experience on Saturday.
‘My lungs were burning, my ribs were burning, my spine – it was the weirdest feeling; it was just burning.’
The teenager suffered six compression fractures to his vertebrae in the aftermath and needed nine stitches in his foot.
He is now unable to walk without a walker, but is on his path to recovery.
In the meantime, the teenager said he is just glad to be alive.
‘If I slipped a little bit more and I landed straight on that slab and not in the water, I would be paralyzed if not dead,’ he noted.
The teenager is now hoping his story will deter others from taking the dangerous plunge.
Medics tended to the cliff-jumper at the scene before being transported to a local hospital with unspecified traumatic injuries
According to a report by OB Rag, from 2005 through 2017, there were 19 deaths and 49 people seriously injured from Sunset Cliffs and its waters.
Yet the location remains a frequent diving spot for locals and visitors.
‘We see it a lot though, especially during the summer months when folks are out and about,’ Candace Hadley, a spokeswoman for San Diego Fire-Rescue previously told the Daily Mail.
People who live nearby the site have even claimed that cliff jumping happens every day, with one woman, Lacee Perkins, sharing photos of a fourth rescue on July 19 in which first responders needed to use a crane to pull an injured cliff-jumper to safety.
Just days after the teen’s now viral rescue, other teenagers were also seen at the site cliff jumping. They told Fox 5 San Diego they were aware of the video, but decided to engage in the dangerous activity anyway.
Some of the teens described their actions to the news station as ‘aura farming,’ a term used to describe doing something risky or impressive for attention and views on social media.
The rescue came just days after a 17 year old was filmed leaping off the rock at Sunset Cliffs and hitting the side of the rocks before falling into the water
But the city’s Municipal Code prohibits jumping or diving into the Pacific Ocean or Mission Bay from natural or human-made points higher than five feet above the water.
‘Lifeguards patrol the area, we make warnings, we make [loudspeaker announcements], we do the best that we can,’ SDFD Lt Charlie Knight said. ‘But as soon as we leave, they group up again and they start jumping off the cliffs.’
When Knight was then asked what more lifeguards can do to prevent the illegal and dangerous act, he said he was ‘unsure at this time.’
