Robert to the unacknowledged rescue

ROBERT GARDNER

Phil Stubbs was a very funny guy. He was so funny that he and his

brother had a risque stand-up comedy act they put on at various night

clubs in the county.

His day job was as a lifeguard, and he spent many years as a guard

in San Clemente, where we met when I used to bodysurf at Trafalgar

Street. For the few of you who haven’t been to T Street, you park on

the far side of the railroad tracks, then cross an overpass to reach

the beach on the other side. The overpass is one of T Street’s big

attractions. As soon as a train is sighted, every kid on the beach

scrambles up the steps of the overpass and hangs on the shaking metal

structure while the train thunders by below them. The other

attraction is the good surf, which was why I was there.

After many years guarding in San Clemente, Phil transferred to

Newport Beach as a lieutenant. That meant he got to drive a jeep

instead of sitting in a tower all day.

One day, at Little Corona, Phil was sitting in his jeep when a

woman ran up to report that her little boy was stuck about halfway up

the cliff. There is a perfectly good set of steps that a person can

use, but he was being adventurous and tried to scale the cliff.

We ran over to where the boy was clinging to the side of the

cliff, screaming. He had come to an overhead and couldn’t go up any

farther, and he had just discovered one of the great truths about

climbing. It’s at least as hard to get down as to get up.

“If he lets go, he’s a goner,” Phil said. “So you go up and hang

on to him, and I’ll take the jeep, drive to the top and come down on

a rope and save him.”

Since Phil was younger and stronger, I said, “Why don’t you go up

and hang on to him, and I’ll drive the jeep?”

“Sorry, no can do,” he replied. “The jeep is city property, and

only a city employee can drive it.”

There wasn’t time to fight government bureaucracy, so I made my

careful way up the cliff to the kid and told him to quit screaming

and concentrate on hanging on because if he let go, we were both

going to take a tumble.

Meanwhile, Phil drove to the top, let down the rope and started

down. A bunch of gravel came with him. The kid began to scream again,

and I was having a hell of a time holding us both to the cliff.

Finally, Phil got there, grabbed the kid with one hand, held the rope

with the other and slid down the cliff. Somehow, I got down, too.

The next day there was a big headline story in the paper about how

heroic lifeguard Phil Stubbs saved a kid from falling to his death

from the cliff. I read the story several times but could find no

mention of my own part in the rescue.

The next time I saw Phil, I complained about being left out.

“Bob,” he said with a grin, “I can’t control what the press

writes.”

The moral of this story is if you do something dramatic and

newsworthy, you better get to the newspaper first.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge.

His column runs Tuesdays.