CALI TRIP: SEAL BEACH

After our time at Great Wolf Lodge, we drove about a mile northwest to meet up with my parents at their Airbnb in Garden Grove. The next four days were meant to be beach, beach, beach. First up, Seal Beach on day three of our vacation. Following a delicious breakfast, we lotioned up, loaded up, and headed out. I was nervous what the parking situation would look like at 10am, but to our surprise, we easily found prime parking. The kids had a blast playing on boogie boards, tossing their surfer dudes in the waves, and building sand castles. We really could not have asked for a better first day at the beach. Just as we were deciding when to wrap it up, an alarming incident occurred. Unbeknownst to us, my mom went down to the water to rinse the sand out of her shoes. I turned from our spot on the beach to see her sitting on the shore. I thought nothing of it; she was probably just playing with some of the kids. It only took a few seconds for my brain to register that she WOULDN'T be sitting like that to play with the kids - she'd be in the water, but never sitting on the shore. Just as this thought crossed my mind, I saw the mr. walking down the beach towards her, so I figured she had just fallen and that he'd help her up. But he couldn't seem to help her to her feet. When she continued to get sucked in further and get tossed about by the wild waves, I started to panic. My dad swiftly made his way down to my mom to help the mr., but even the two of them could not lift her out of the water. They, themselves, began getting knocked down. I dashed down to the beach and arrived to hear my mom simply state, "I broke my ankle. I know it. I heard it snap." My dad asked if someone could call 911 and my mom protested. I took off, flying in the direction of my phone but instead decided to sprint to the nearest lifeguard tower. Three lifeguards jumped down and sped down the beach in their truck as I raced back to my mom. A good samaritan had assisted the mr. and my dad in getting my mom to her feet. The three of them helped her walk a couple of feet to the back of the truck, where she and I were brought to the parking lot near the lifeguard tower for an assessment. They packed her ankle with ice and gave her some oxygen while I ran off for water. Once an incident report had been filled out, they allowed my parents (both retired nurses) to head to the nearest urgent care facility on their own. Sure enough, my mom had snapped her fibula the entire way through when a rip current and a strong wave simultaneously hit and twisted around her feet at the beach. She was sent home a few hours later on crutches with a temporary brace and had been told that surgery would almost definitely be required. While we waited for them to return to the Airbnb, we swam. Unfortunately, the pain and difficulty of crutches became too much to bear and my parents ultimately decided to go home a day early. Since they've been home, my mom has had a series of medical appointments. Initially, it looked as if a fiberglass cast might be enough to adequately mend the bone. At yesterday's appointment, my mom found out that she will be requiring immediate surgery after all. Even though this is not how we had hoped recovery would pan out, we are all well aware that the situation on the beach could have been so much worse. A man was actually killed by a wave in NC a week after my mom's incident.