One dead, five rescued from overturned boat off of Redondo Beach

by Garth Meyer

One man died and five people were rescued at sea Sunday, Nov. 3 when a charter boat overturned during a trip to disperse the ashes of a loved one in King Harbor.

The victim was named by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office as Fredrico Salguero, 56, of Los Angeles.

A mayday call came in at 1:08 p.m., with chopped waves and sun glare coming off of the water. The Redondo Beach Fire Department’s rescue boat responded with three personnel on board, one of whom was Fire Chief Patrick Butler.

The voice on the 911 call said people were stranded on a boat, they needed help and they did not have much time. Then the call disconnected.

The Redondo fire department boat went to the believed location, off of Avenue C, as a Los Angeles County Lifeguard BayWatch rescue boat and a Lifeguard personal watercraft arrived from Marina Del Rey and Hermosa Beach. 

On the Redondo fire department boat, Chief Butler handled radio communications, and Captain Chad Smith drove the boat, with waves splashing over the bow. They could not use binoculars because the water was too bouncy.

“30 mile-an-hour winds, whitecaps everywhere, wind-waves about eight feet,” Butler said. “It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. The water was that choppy, and there was a heavy sun glare.”

Finally, Smith spotted what first appeared to be a buoy, but as they got closer, they saw it was a vessel upside down, with five people on its exposed hull.

RBFD rescue swimmer Brad Godinez jumped in the water to ferry the victims to the rescue boat, aided by a Baywatch Lifeguard. 

The five people were pulled in from the 26-foot MacGregor motorsailer, which had no keel. One person from the boat was unaccounted for.

The RBFD crew left to take those rescued to land, while four Baywatch Lifeguards rescue divers searched for the missing person. One of the divers swam inside the overturned boat’s cabin to find an unresponsive male inside. He pulled him to the surface.

After attempts to resuscitate the man, Fredrico Salguero, on the Baywatch boat, he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Among the rescued were the boat’s captain and his nine-year-old son.

“It was a solemn end, but in my 35 years’ experience in this business, I’ve never seen such a complex rescue at sea,” Butler said, citing the eight-foot waves and general conditions. “The (rescued) were in great peril, I can tell you that. They didn’t know how to swim, they didn’t have life jackets on, except for the little boy, and they didn’t have much to grab onto.”

The men and women rescued were in their 20s and 30s, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. 

“I think the boat overturned so quickly that they were unable to don life jackets fast enough,” said Captain Pono Barnes, ocean lifeguard, Los Angeles County Fire Department.  

What might have caused the boat to overturn?

“It’s always a number of things, never just one thing that causes it,” Barnes said. 

A small-craft advisory was in effect at the time of the incident.

“We still need to interview everybody,” said Steve Di Jong, L.A. County Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau. “They may have made the 911 call after being in the water.”

All of the rescued, including the captain and his young son, were in stable condition, Di Jong reported.

Since the incident included a death, it is being investigated by the Sheriff’s Department. 

The boat was chartered out of King Harbor.

“It’s our understanding it was licensed properly,” Di Jong said, referring to Coast Guard investigators who are helping.

“The investigation is still ongoing,” he said. ER