Under the cloak of darkness early Saturday morning in Imperial Beach, four of nine migrants hoping for a better life in the United States didn’t survive the journey. The smuggling boat they were on flipped over.
Retired lifeguard Sgt. Frank Powell remembers the danger he used to race into, getting those calls.
“They don’t know what to expect,” Powell said. “They don’t know how many bodies. They don’t know who’s in the water, yelling for help. They don’t know how many people are involved. They don’t know if it’s a drug cartel, were they smuggling drugs, or whether they could be ambushed.”
San Diego’s coast is no stranger to deadly human smuggling operations.
Eight adults died off the coast of Black’s Beach, when two smuggling boats flipped over in March 2023. At the time, the lifeguard chief called it one of the worst boating tragedies he could remember.
Powell says after seeing numerous casualties over the years, it took time for the PTSD to set in.
“It got me when I had kids because I remember all the kids I pulled out and all the bodies I’ve seen,” he said. “So it does come back to me. When you set the body in the gurney, and you walk away, the adrenaline comes down, and you’re just, it’s just sad.”
As immigration enforcement on land has tightened, smugglers are increasingly using water routes where San Diegans and tourists swim, putting them in danger.
“A person falls off the surfboard; there’s no leash comes in the water and that can injure people. Imagine that being a boat,” Powell said.
As swimmers, migrants and first responders are continuously put in harm’s way, Powell says he’s thankful to see the smugglers in this weekend’s deadly Imperial Beach crash facing charges and one of the men involved in May’s deadly Del Mar operation sentenced for his crimes.