Search continues for boy missing off Ocean Beach in S.F.

Emergency workers on Ocean Beach search for a 14-year-old boy who was swept out to sea. Emergency workers on Ocean Beach search for a 14-year-old boy who was swept out to sea. Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 27 Caption Close Search continues for boy missing off Ocean Beach in S.F. 1 / 27 Back to Gallery

Rescue crews continued to search into the night Wednesday for a 14-year-old boy in the water off San Francisco's Ocean Beach after a surfer pulled the boy's father and a young cousin to shore.

Much of the operation was scaled back in the late evening in the search for the boy, identified by firefighters as Marco Cornejo.

San Francisco Fire Department Battalion Chief Rudy Castellanos said responders were able to restore the father's pulse, but the man was clinging to life. A woman and young girl accompanied him in an ambulance to UCSF Medical Center.

Earlier, spotters had peered into the waves from the tops of extension ladders on fire trucks along the shore as the U.S. Coast Guard and other crews used boats and a helicopter to search the waters from the Cliff House to Sloat Boulevard.

Initial reports said two swimmers were in distress, but the Fire Department said a third young person was in the water.

Surfer Tony Barbero, 17, is credited with saving the father and the cousin.

Barbero said he saw a boy splashing in the water and then spotted a man trying to rescue him.

Barbero said he grabbed the boy, put him on his surfboard and pulled him to shore. The father was struggling, too, and Barbero pulled him out of the water using a rescue hold.

"I'm overwhelmed," Barbero said, visibly shaken. "I just came down here to catch some waves."

Authorities received calls reporting swimmers in distress at 3:53 p.m., according to the Fire Department. The father had gone into the water to rescue his son, who was pulled out to sea by a rip current, Castellanos said. The father got caught in the same current.

Barbero's father, Joe Barbero, is a captain with the city's Fire Department. He rushed to Ocean Beach after hearing from his son.

As Tony Barbero shivered in the chilly air, his father wrapped a firefighter jacket around him.

"I think it was great that he was able to help others," Joe Barbero said.

Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White echoed the sentiment, calling Tony Barbero a "hero."

"He did a phenomenal job," she said. "He saved two lives today."

She said the two people whom Tony Barbero rescued were wearing street clothes. It's unknown if they - or the other missing boy - had been swimming in the surf or had been knocked into the ocean by rogue waves, but she warned the public to be wary of the ocean.

"It can look calm, but it's dangerous," Hayes-White said. "It can be deceiving, especially when it's a nice day. We encourage people to enjoy it from the beach."