The children yelled for their mom, dad and siblings. Cook and about a dozen other surfers paddled their boards as fast as they could to the scene that day, Feb. 7. They grabbed the passengers and placed them on their surfboards. About 15 minutes later, boats from the Santa Cruz Harbor Patrol picked up the passengers, who were treated for minor injuries and transported to a hospital.
"Crazy situation yesterday," Virostko wrote on Instagram. "I saw the boat coming as I was outside dodging a big middle peak set. He zoomed by me and I saw he had his family on the boat. As I watched him drive straight into a big white wash I knew they went down and it was time to paddle in as quickly as possible to help save the family."
The International Organization for Migration said the boat overturned north of Zuwara on Friday. Only two Nigerian women were rescued during a search and rescue operation by Libyan authorities, the IOM said in a statement, adding that one of the survivors said she lost her husband and the other said she had lost her two babies in the tragedy. The IOM said its teams provided the two survivors with emergency medical care.
