Coupeville Sports

Kyle King, American Hero (Katerina Koeva photo)

The Dude abides.

Faster than you can cue up the theme from “Baywatch,” Kyle King is there to save the day.

The Coupeville High School grad, now a standout college track and cross country runner who ran on scholarship for national power Oklahoma this past season, is also working as a life guard. And he’s doing pretty darn well at his secondary vocation.

Though he’s characteristically modest about his accomplishments, he recently helped save a group of swimmers, including three young children, who were caught in a rip tide at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

King’s recollection of the day:

“We were breaking our chairs and umbrellas down at the end of the day when I heard on the radio we had a Code 2, which is a water emergency. I was a couple hundred yards away so I sprinted down with my buoy.

There were about a total of ten people pulled out in a rip and three little kids, with all the adults trying to hold the kids above the water, so we grabbed the little kids first, all around four years old, and pulled them in.

Most of the adults could make it in once they didn’t have to swim for the kids and themselves. We had to pull one adult in who was completely exhausted from holding his child up.

The whole beach ended up clapping for us once it was all said and done. It was honestly pretty crazy; definitely the craziest moments of my life.

The rip current was so tough it felt like a river.

We didn’t have time to swim out of it though, because there were so many people that needed to be rescued, so we pulled straight against it and handed the kids off to the third lifeguard who was wading in at chest deep. Just two of us were out swimming with the victims.

Everything ended up being 10-4 though.