Woman saved, but boy dies, uncle lost

By Jennifer Burns, KTVZ.COM

A mother says she, her 6-year-old son and a newly married couple were swept from a coastal rock near Coos Bay, when they fell victim to a sneaker wave.

"We were all four there," Angela Leone said. "It was just a freak wave, we were just looking at the tide pools and stuff."

Three Bend residents were vacationing in the Coos Bay area and were standing near that rock in Shore Acres Park.

They say they heard the wave hit and ran to help the strangers being pulled into the ocean.

"The strength of the wave, they were only in knee deep water," Bryce Robertson said Wednesday.

Leone says she tried to hold onto her son but couldn't.

Two of the Bend residents reached in, to pull her out.

Leone says her sister, Robin Tyler, was pushed out of the water by her new husband, 39-year-old Roy Tyler. Leone now calls him a hero.

"Roy had pushed Robin where she could grab onto safety and had grabbed onto Craig," she said.

Robertson said the wave "pulled them, the man and the boy, it just pulled them back out to sea."

Robertson says Jennifer Heacock of Bend ran to a gift shop to call for help, after helping the women out of the water.

Ten minutes later, Robertson said, "Jennifer's mom spotted the boy on the other side of the cove, who had kind of washed up on shore. We all ran down there and picked him up and carried him onto the sand."

Leone recalled, "I was yelling, saying, 'We need to start CPR,!CPR!'"

Robertson and Heacock say they started CPR.

"He didn't seem responsive, just kind of blue," Robertson said.

The Coast Guard said, the quick thinking of the Bend residents may have given 6-year-old Craig Leone a chance at survival.

"He was actually stable for like 15 minutes," his mother said. "His blood pressure was coming up. His temperature was coming up. But his little body was in shock."

Leone says her son died three hours later as he was en route to a Portland children's hospital.

After hours of searching by several different agencies, the search for Roy Tyler's body was called off.

"There wasn't really anything else to do," Robertson said. "You know you're trying to do so much. You're doing everything, and it just doesn't seem to be enough."

Angela Leone said, "Bless them, because they did help me."

Her life saved, her young son lost, but never forgotten.

"He was a loving, wonderful person," Leone said. "He got taken away too soon."

She says something needs to be done to warn people of the sneaker waves in the area, as there are no signs there.

Also, this week a Coos Bay organization is holding a meeting to try to get a cell phone tower up near the coast.

Leone says it took responders too long to reach them because of the poor cell-phone reception.