Laguna Beach fire fighters rescued three people who were trapped in a cove Wednesday as the sky darkened and the tide was rising.
Two males and a female in their 20s walked into a cove known as Littleman’s Cove around 6 p.m., said Jeff LaTendresse, deputy chief of the Laguna Beach Fire Department.
A high surf came in, and the trio discovered they could not get out of the cove the same way they came in.
“They were scared,” he said. “There was some pretty good surf last night. The tide kept coming and coming.”
The fire department was contacted around 9 p.m. and began a rope rescue operation, LaTendresse said. The three were loaded into stokes baskets and pulled 100 feet up a cliff using ladder trucks, he said.
The tide reached 5 feet during the rescue operation, which took three hours, he said.
Two of the people were transported to a local hospital and treated for exposure.
“We get our fair share of rescuing people several times a year,” LaTendresse said.
— My-Thuan Tran