BREAKING NEWS: Two children saved from drowning in Newport

“We don’t want to die! We don’t want to die!” the kids begged, the current hurling them toward the 28th Street jetty.

“Trust me honey, I don’t want you to die either,” Newport Beach lifeguard John Moore replied.

A 9-year-old San Bernardino boy and his 7-year-old sister were rescued from drowning in Newport Beach today after they lost hold of their boogie boards and pounding 4-foot waves and currents shoved them toward the serrated jetty west of Newport Beach pier.

“My first instinct was to just swim over there. I just did the best I could,” said Summer Watson, who along with Amy Dichiro, kept the kids from being swept onto the rocks.

The women said they were giving a surfing lesson nearby when they noticed the kids in trouble.

“If those girls hadn’t been there they would have been bashed into the jetty. It was pretty hairy, the kids were just screaming, ‘We’re going to die, we’re going to die!’” said surfing student Liz Ward. “Two more seconds, they were on the rocks.”

The kids immediately latched onto Watson, pushing her under, she said.

“They were just getting pounded by these waves and getting sucked out. I swam up. They were both holding me, almost drowning me,” Watson said.

The kids’ mother flagged down Moore and lifeguard George Leeper passing by in their truck, they said.

It was an all-out sprint, if they had all been out there any longer without any flotation devices they could have all drowned, Moore and Leeper said.

Drowning victims usually progress through a few stages, Moore said. First, they don’t realize they’re in trouble. When they do, they instinctively aim directly for shore, fighting the current and exhausting themselves, he said. When the panic and adrenaline kicks in, that’s when the rescuer is pushed under, he said.

“They get tunnel vision on what’s going to save them, they don’t realize it’s the buoy they need to hold onto, not me,” Moore said.

“You’re not going to die, just calm down and relax,” Watson remembered telling the kids before lifeguards swam them all to shore.

While the lifeguards looked like the heroes for swimming the kids in, they have no illusions about where they said the credit belongs.

“The fact that the surfing instructor was there did save their lives,” Moore said.

“I did what anyone else would do,” Watson said.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.