Gerald Hanks
A Houston-area teen is alive and well after he plummeted off a cliff and into the Pacific Ocean.
Videos by Rare
On a trip to California, Gerard Hobbs, 19, fell more than 20 feet from the Sunset Cliffs near San Diego, landing in the water.
An emergency rescue team pulled Hobbs out, paramedics examined his injuries, and, miraculously, he survived with only superficial wounds and a swollen leg.
Hobbs and a friend, Amerdeep Sheemar, were celebrating their recent graduation from Kempner High School in Sugar Land and taking photos and videos when he lost his footing:
“He was getting a clip of me, and, then, when I turned around, he was gone,” Sheemar said in an interview.
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Scraping along the cliffside as he went down, Hobbs barely escaped falling into the sharp rocks at the base of the cliff, avoiding a more serious outcome by about a a foot.
Even with the margin, however, Hobbs was not completely safe:
“When I fell in, all the seaweed had wrapped around me, and I was just like panicking at that point because I saw that I actually fell off,” Hobbs said in an interview. “I was wrapped in it all, and I was just trying to get help.”
Lifeguards at the scene used a pulley system to lift Hobbs out of the water and onto a stable platform.
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“I should be dead right now,” Hobbs said further, “but I’m really grateful for everything that happened.”
Despite the experience, the Houstonian and his visiting classmate are not cutting their trip short.
But they probably won’t be returning to see any more sunsets at the cliffs.
