> K38 Rescue Shawn Alladio - Superwoman of the Surf

05/21/2006

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, Whether pulling surfers out of monstrous waves at tow-in surfing competitions around the globe or training water-response personnel on a pleasant day at a local private beach, water rescue expert Shawn Alladio is on top of her game.

On a recent Sunday, she was running an event in which a dozen men on personal watercraft competed for time on a buoy-marked course while simulating the rescue of victims in distress, keeping an eye on her 2-year-old daughter, Shania, and talking about the need for qualified water-rescue personnel -- simultaneously.

Alladio is known around the world for her work at tow-in contests such as the Big Wave Africa Surfing Contest in Hout Bay, Cape Town, Africa. But she is especially famous for having taken on a 100-foot wave in 2001 at Mavericks in Northern California on her personal watercraft, or boat as she calls the personal watercraft.

A local resident since last year, Alladio and her 24-year-old daughter, Kyla Dominguez, run K38 Water Safety, which conducts training and competitions for rescue agencies around the world.

Last week, they hosted trainees from California and Great Britain at Liquid Militia Beach, a private spot north of Goleta, in a benefit event for the Higgins and Langley Memorial Awards in Swiftwater and Flood Rescue.

In light chop and wind, the surfers, lifeguards and other trainees sliced through the water on their "boats," sometimes with one or more "victims" hanging onto the rescue sled behind them.

"There's going to be those situations where my friend or myself is going to be a victim, and we're going to need that knowledge right then and there," said Easton Thodos, 21, who was introduced to Alladio by Mavericks pioneer Jeff Clark.

A UCSB student, Thodos said he anticipates using his rescue skills as a lifeguard and big wave surfer. If it wasn't for her instruction, he added, he might be limiting his lifeguarding to watching kids in the city pool.

The Higgins and Langley awards are named for Earl Higgins, who died attempting a rescue in a flood-swollen rescue in Los Angeles in 1980, and Jeff Langley, who founded Los Angeles County's Swiftwater Rescue program but died in an unrelated accident. His widow, Karen, lives in Santa Ynez.

Alladio received a special commendation from the charity for her support of California's eight swiftwater rescue teams, all of which participated in rescue efforts during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"These awards do not honor heroism, although there is always some element of heroism in rescue," said Nancy Riggs, who was engaged to Earl Higgins and watched him go into the river after a 12-year-old boy who was drowning.

That has certainly been the case for Alladio, 45, who downplayed hundreds of rescues she has made over a lifetime of training and competing on a personal watercraft.

Her work with big wave surfing took off in 1998, when she was appointed director of the water safety committee by the International Surfing Association. She worked Todos Santos in 1998, the inaugural Reef Big Wave World Championships, was at Mavericks in 1999 and has done annual big wave contests since then, including Big Wave Africa.

In the recently released "Surfing's Greatest Misadventures," a piece she wrote details the execution of one of 60 rescues she made at Hout Bay on June 18, 2001, when conditions peaked four days after the contest was supposed to take place.

"The waves were coming in at 26 mph. They were explosive, violent and deafening, with 16-second intervals between them. If Ian (Armstrong, 1999 ISA Team World Champion from South Africa) wrecked, he would have less than 16 seconds to find his way to the surface, and I'd have the remainder of those seconds to find him, get him on my sledless WaveRunner, and get back to the Channel."

Armstrong ended up falling 25 feet from a wave and was temporarily paralyzed. Alladio's daring rescue saved his life.

She started riding in her teens and was often just in the right place at the right time when it came to helping people out, she said. Her first rescue, on the Colorado River in 1980, involved a boat that had run aground towing a water skier, who broke both his legs. She helped the man to safety.

"She truly wants to help people, and she loves what she's doing," said her elder daughter, who was one of her mother's motivations for moving toward rescue and training and away from competition.

"As a mother, I felt like I had responsibility for safety and education," Alladio said. "(Kyla) would take my trophies to school for show and tell."

Alladio still competes, focusing on endurance races of up to 400 miles (which takes her about eight hours on a personal watercraft).

In 1994, officials from the California Department of Boating and Waterways asked Alladio to develop rescue education and training programs. She joined the state boating safety advisory committee in 1998 and the national safe boating council in 1997.

Despite her legitimately heroic efforts in monster waves, those experiences are not the ones Alladio talks about when asked about the worst rescue situation she has been in. Instead, she says that was her most recent rescue effort -- in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

She spent several days delivering donated equipment from watercraft manufacturers and conducting evacuations of people stranded in their flooded homes. Then, after returning to California, she woke up in the middle of the night knowing she had to go back.

"My conscience couldn't handle it," she said. "I went back and got the animals of the people I had evacuated." Cats, dogs, hamsters, a goose and a pot-bellied big were all rescued and reunited with their owners.

Note: Shawn Alladio

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