A man was rescued by helicopter Sunday after he was found clinging to a rock about 100 yards offshore south of Sea Ranch, battered by cold waves until a Sonoma County Sheriff's Office crew lowered a rescuer on a 100-foot cable to pull him free. He was treated for cold-water exposure at the scene and released, while two other people found nearby on a nearby rock turned down help entirely.
The rescue unfolded around 11:40 a.m. Sunday near Rocky Point, a stretch of coastline off Highway 1 south of Stewarts Point and north of Horseshoe Point, according to SFGate. Cal Fire personnel who arrived on scene confirmed one person was clinging to a rock and being struck by waves, the outlet reported. The man had apparently been swimming in the ocean before he reached the promontory, where he was battered by frigid swells, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
A Cable Drop And A Horse-Collar Lift
The sheriff's office helicopter, known as Henry One, was configured for a 100-foot longline rescue, and its tactical flight officer descended on the cable to reach the man directly, per the Chronicle's account. The officer secured him in a horse-collar device before he was lifted to the bluff, where medical crews were waiting, the same report states. From there he was brought to a staging area to be evaluated.
Once on solid ground, the man was treated for cold-water exposure and released at the scene, the station's report notes. As reported by CBS San Francisco, which credited the CBS San Francisco account to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office, the agency reported both the rescue itself and the man's subsequent treatment.
Two Fishermen Chose To Stay Put
As the helicopter checked the offshore rock, crews found two other people on a nearby rock who turned out to have nothing to do with the man they'd just pulled from the water. They were fishing from the rock and were found to be unrelated to the rescued man, per the same SFGate account. Rather than accept an airlift of their own, the pair refused extraction by the helicopter and simply remained on the large rock.
A Multi-Agency Response On A Rugged Coastline
Sunday's operation drew support beyond the sheriff's office helicopter crew, with Cal Fire, the North Sonoma Coast Fire Protection District and Coast Life Support District all responding, according to SFGate's reporting. It's the kind of coordinated response that has become familiar along this stretch of coast; the same pattern of multiple agencies coordinating their response showed up in a March 2024 incident near Point Reyes, according to the Press Democrat, when a Half Moon Bay man died after his fishing boat crashed into rocks and a rescue crew broke into the boat's cabin only to find him dead.
Long-line helicopter extractions from this coastline aren't new, either. Back in November 2011, a sheriff's helicopter crew used a long-line rescue to pull a 45-year-old San Francisco man off rocks near Fort Ross after he was stranded at the bottom of a 75-foot ocean cliff with a fishing spear stuck in his leg, according to the Mercury News. Sunday's rescue adds to a long list of close calls along the rugged Sonoma coast, where the ocean and surf can be unpredictable.
