A teenager was rescued recently off the coast of Honolulu following a 12-hour ordeal drifting through choppy waters filled with zigzagging currents.
Through the long darkness of a night near the equator, Kahiau Kawai bobbed up and down clinging to a kayak while seeing the lights of the search parties looking for him in vain far away back near the shore.
The response had been organized around 6:30 p.m. when Kawai’s high school kayaking team found that he hadn’t made it back to Diamond Head during a kayaking practice meet that evening.
911 organized on-shore lifeguards, US Coast Guard, and other assets to try and find the young man. Kawai’s surf ski kayak had been capsized, and in the struggle he had lost his paddle. With nothing to propel the craft through the currents he knew were dragging him out to sea, he tried to stay calm.
One of those rescuers, Noland Keaulana, an experienced native Hawai’ian waterman and lifeguard with the Honolulu Ocean Safety Department, had been alerted to 17-year-old Kawai’s plight by his wife, who called Keaulana while he was fixing his truck and said the son of their friends had gone missing in the ocean.
Speaking with CNN, Keaulana said that he treats every Islander like his own family.
“I treat everyone like as [sic] they’re my own family member. Pretty much that whole night, I’m out there searching for my own son,” he said. “Being able to find him was very emotional.”
Kawai said he tried to keep his faith in god while he swam gently and constantly towards the shore, but admitted he was afraid of the dark, churning water beneath. Seeing the searchlights of the helicopter and vessels in the distance was particularly dismaying.
“I saw them go to a certain point a bunch of times but they weren’t going as far out as I was and that scared me a little bit,” Kahiau said.
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At around 4 a.m. Thursday, after searching for over eight hours, a US Coast Guard airplane crew spotted the kayak and the teenager clinging onto it. They marked his location with a flare, where Keaulana came to find him on what was his day off.
The lifeguard remembered that the first thing Kawai said when climbing onto the boat was that he was scared his family was worried about him. Luckily, Keaulana had his family’s number, and, calling them to share the good news, he said the celebrations sounded like a bunch of monkeys and hyenas through the phone.
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At 5:25 a.m., Keaulana transported Kawai to the Ala Wai Harbor emergency room, where he was treated for injuries and hypothermia. He was in serious but stable condition.
“To ensure this does not happen again, we have initiated a thorough review of the incident and will hold ourselves accountable to take all necessary actions,” Kamehameha Schools, whose kayaking team Kawai is a member of, told CNN in a statement. “We can and will do better.”
WATCH the moments leading up to the rescue below…
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