Cambodian-American man swept into ocean off northern Oregon coast

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Man swept into ocean off northern Ore. coast

11/18/2008
By MARY HUDETZ
Associated Press
The Pacific Ocean has dragged away a 25-year-old man who took a nap on the rocks and then was trapped by the rising tide.
Sokhak Peng of Portland disappeared about 1:30 p.m. Sunday south of Cannon Beach. The Coast Guard searched for more than three hours Sunday and half a dozen local officers continued combing the beach Monday.
"Unfortunately, it's probably a loss," said Clatsop County Sheriff Thomas Bergin. "We have people watching and looking, but there's nothing you can really do. You have to wait."
Peng and his companion, 33-year-old Deanna Feey, took a day trip to Arch Cape, authorities said. Feey reported they hiked to the rocks at low tide and took a nap.
By the time they awoke, the tide had moved in, and their route to the mainland was submerged in water.
Peng's family arrived Monday at the site where he was swept away.
"He died of drowning," said his sister, Dara Khon. "She saw him gasp for a couple breaths."
Khon said the family is originally from Cambodia and fled fighting to the U.S. in 1988 "to escape the land mines."
her brother had recently become a U.S. citizen, she said.
Kathy Oglesby, a housekeeper, said she and her husband were about 150 feet away, cleaning a cliffside home and had seen Peng and Feey sleeping on the rock and then get up and start moving around.
Later, when the tide started to move in, she said, both of them were standing, but they did not have a path back to the beach.
"It's like you're watching it happen in slow motion," she said. "But it was, you know, a matter of seconds and you couldn't see him anymore."
Oglesby recalls seeing a wave hit the rock, then seeing Peng's back in the water. Seconds later another wave rushed over him, and he disappeared, she said.
"It's all from our perspective, but you know there was no struggling, no scream for help," she said.
From her perspective, she said, it appeared that Peng was more concerned with Feey's safety than his own.
A Coast Guard helicopter responding to Oglesby's call arrived within six minutes, she said, and lifted Feey from the rock.
"She was clinging to that rock and a wave was breaking over it," said Robert Coster, a civilian search and rescue controller for the Coast Guard.
The water temperature was about 53 degrees, according to the Coast Guard, and Feey appeared to be developing hypothermia symptoms.
She was taken to a beach at the south end of Hug Point State Park, he said, and treated by an emergency services team.
The Coast Guard said the Pacific Northwest shorelines are especially dangerous during seasonal changes, and sneaker waves can appear without warning and are impossible to predict.
Sheriff Bergen said there are signs along the coast warning hikers of the risks.
"It's very common knowledge that the Oregon Coast is rugged," he said.
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