Trip turns into rescue

As Camille Collett slept, an unfamiliar sound broke through the serenade of crashing waves on the Mexico coast.

Cries of “Ayuda! Ayuda!,” or “help” in Spanish, woke up the Newport Harbor High School senior Saturday morning in the rented beach house at Troncones Beach in Zihuatanejo.

“I was sleeping. She woke me up with, ‘Hey dad, somebody’s in trouble,’” recalled her father, Charlie. “I get out of bed, you can see out in the water, a guy flailing out in the water, going down and coming up. A lady is sprawled out on the rocks, getting worked by the waves. This guy is screamin’ and yellin’. He was in dire straits.”

It was a scene of panic and confusion, but the Colletts kept their composure.

The pair headed out to the water. Camille with her surfboard, Charlie with a boogie board.

“It was a pretty gnarly rip tide,” Camille said at home Thursday. The family had rented the house for a surfing trip with friends.

One other man, a local, had the guts to head into the 6- to 7-foot waves and strong rip tide to try to help. The Colletts never did get his name.

The local guy reached the drowning man first, sending the Colletts farther out, past the break to find a third woman in trouble.

“I couldn’t find her anywhere. I was looking all around,” Camille said.

She was never found, the Colletts later learned.

While the other woman clung to the jetty for life — and eventually made it back to shore safely — the Colletts and the local man struggled to save the drowning man.

“He was so wiped out, he was pale white, eyes wide open,” Charlie said.

Camille attached her surfboard’s leash, the local’s leash, and her dad’s leash to the man. Together, they swam farther out, past the wave break that made the rescue so perilous.

Exhausted, the man rested on the boogie board while Camille and Charlie dragged him south past the rip tide. All four eventually made it safely to shore.

Now safely back at home, the Colletts can look back at Saturday with a little more perspective.

“It was definitely a prompt wake-up. The situation was so kind of ugly and so immediate you’re not really thinking about a hell of a lot. You’ve got to do something and you do what you got to do,” Charlie said. “I think Camille did a brave and selfless thing.”

“I don’t know, my dad said, like, being able to be calm in the situation is probably the most helpful thing,” Camille said. “I was in junior guards so I kind of went into that little mode. I would think anyone would have hopefully done something like this.”

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at [email protected].