HAWAII / Schwarzenegger a real-life hero in saving swimmer

If it was an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, the swimmer in danger most likely would have been surrounded by sharks or fighting with an aquatic robot.

Instead, Schwarzenegger, the former film hero and current California governor, calmly helped a distressed swimmer return to shore this week at a Hawaii beach after the man told him he was cramping up in the water, the governor's press secretary confirmed Friday.

Schwarzenegger pulled the man and his boogie board about 100 yards back to land Wednesday morning near the Maui resort where he is vacationing with his family. The governor was apparently swimming near the man when he sensed trouble and offered to help, said spokeswoman Margita Thompson.

Schwarzenegger saved the world from Satan, robots and terrorists in his movies. And he promised after his stunning political victory last fall that he would save California from an epic budget mess.

Now, he can say he's a real-life savior. Or at least a very strong swimmer.

"This is so very Arnold. He is the action governor, right?" said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at the University of Southern California. "I mean, can you imagine Gray Davis doing this?"

The exploits of the governor were first reported Friday by the television show "Access Hollywood." One of the show's hosts, Pat O'Brien, is staying this week at the same place as Schwarzenegger, the posh Four Seasons Resort.

O'Brien, who probably shouldn't vacation with celebrities if he wants time off, was in the perfect place for the scoop.

Kelley Collelo, publicist for Access Hollywood, said O'Brien had been tipped to the incident by someone at the resort. In an interview with the Associated Press, O'Brien seemed to indicate the tipster was Maria Shriver, Schwarzenegger's wife.

"(She) came up and she said, you know, 'Did you hear the big story?' " O'Brien told the Associated Press.

Access Hollywood began running the story on its Web site Friday morning.

And Schwarzenegger's heroics were impressive enough to be one of the lead items on "Access Hollywood's" Friday afternoon broadcast, coming just after stories about MTV-made celebrity Kelly Osbourne's drug rehabilitation and the latest firings from the Donald Trump hit TV show "The Apprentice," according to Collelo.

"He's ahead of (actress) Debra Messing's new baby and a Kobe (Bryant) story," Collelo said.

No one knows the name of the man the governor helped out. Maui police said there was no report of the incident, and they noted that swimmers run into problems nearly every day on local beaches without it warranting a report or any fanfare.

Schwarzenegger isn't the first politician to make an effort to be a hero.

Sen. Bill Frist, a Republican from Tennessee who is also a physician, made headlines in 1995 when he performed CPR on a constituent who collapsed outside his office in the Capitol.

In California, Attorney General Dan Lungren in 1991 chased a would-be burglar from his house to a cul-de-sac, where police arrested the man.