The Current - A rogue wave nearly killed him. Here’s why they’re so deadly

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Noah Mintz was only in knee-deep water when he was almost paralyzed by a rogue wave, rising suddenly out of the ocean at twice the size of the waves around it. We learn more about these deadly walls of water in the documentary The Wave.

This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on a Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination-focused dining, and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. With a variety of voyages and sailing dates to choose from, now is the time to explore Europe's waterways. Learn more at Viking.com. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. It is that time of the year when many Canadians are scouring the internet for cheap flights just about anywhere as long as there's beach and sand. For those who do escape south, most come home with souvenirs and great memories. But unfortunately, that is not always the case.

The story you are about to hear is about people who have had an exceptional experience, one they believe you should know about crucially for those about to spend time near the ocean. The CBC's Joan Weber brings us this story in her documentary, The Wave. On a bright winter's day on the Pacific coast of Mexico, a guy named Noah Mintz suddenly finds himself floating helplessly in the surf. I was just lying straight down in the water, face down, unable to move. I just thought to myself, this is it. This is the moment I'm going to die right now.

It's a grim turn of events. He's really only just arrived from Toronto, day one of a spontaneous trip with a recent ex-girlfriend. They're in Sayulita, a popular beach town just north of Puerto Vallarta. It's January 23rd, 2020. I was hoping literally just to explore the little surf town and just be in the water and just be chill

for that three days, you know? I certainly didn't expect it, ended up staying there like like 10 days or 14 days, however long it was. On the day in question, the morning after they arrive, we just walked around town, had a burrito, and then went to the beach. I was in in the water and I was really having, I thought I was having a really good time, and then went to the beach. I was in the water and I was really having, I thought I was having a really good time and then Jesse, the ex-girlfriend, she suggested that we get out. I was like, yeah, no problem. Let's go out and I started swimming to shore. And then when the water got too shallow to swim, I just stood up. At this point, Noah describes the water as being under his ankles, the waves knee-cap

height. And I know not to turn your back to the ocean, but I wasn't really thinking that. And then I got hit from behind. Like over my head. And it knocks him down. I was like... I was like, wow. I was like surprised. And I got pulled back out. Then the undertow takes him.

Like rapidly fast. I went straight down. And I bonked my head at the bottom and my head hit and it went forward and I heard like a knock sound and then I was like wow that was insane I thought to myself and then I went to go swim back to shore and I couldn't move I went to go swim back to shore and I couldn't move. And it's weird because you'd think it was a new feeling, but it's not. It's like if you've ever woken up and had like sort of like sleep paralysis or like been so tired you can't move. That's what it feels like. Or that dream state when you're in a dream and you're trying to move, you can't move. That's what it feels like.

Or that dream state, when you're in a dream and you're trying to move someone, you can't. That's exactly what it feels like. And then the first thing I thought, and I'm not embellishing, I thought, damn, I really wanted more of those tacos I had last night. And then I'm like, this is real. Like, this is it.

This is actually this moment I need a thought to go out on. Where is that moment gonna be that I'm gonna choose to like, lose air on? He isn't expecting to be rescued. He's enveloped by ocean. But suddenly, though, his ex is there grabbing him and turning him over. And I just looked up to her and I said, Jessie, I can't move.

Though he doesn't know it yet, it's very likely no immense has been struck by a rogue wave. A rogue wave is defined as being at least 2.2 times as high as the average waves which have come before. People often describe them as having come out of nowhere. And though rogue waves themselves are not infrequent, it's considered rare that a person is hit by one. But rare is not never. Four years on, along the very same coastline, just a little further north, a group of three friends arrive in the tiny village of Chacala, Mexico. It's December of 2023.

For me, given the year I had been through, I was just looking forward to peace and relaxation. This trip is meant to be a bomb. Tati Notar has been struggling with the recent death of her husband, and she's there for a yoga retreat with two of her closest friends, Pam Bertrand and Mary McNutt. Things begin well. We showed each other our rooms and we were, like one was better than the next.

They were fantastic and they each had terraces looking out onto the ocean. And so after that, I guess around two, Mary and I decided to go for a swim. They go to the public beach. The beach is like, it's's a bay like it's not in the open ocean really it had a sense that it was kind of a quieter bay. Tassie describes the waves there as coming to their knees. Around the very same time a waves down the beach Pam snaps a photo from her lounge chair. You can see her flip-flops against a backdrop of calm, clear blue ocean.

And the water was so warm. And it was buoyant. And we were floating. You know, the water was around our neck. And, you know, we were, I don't know, about 20 feet away from each other. And I remember Mary kind of, you know, saying to me I don't know, about 20 feet away from each other. And I remember Mary kind of, you know, saying to me,

this is so glorious. And then I turned, and I can't even describe what I saw. They know immediately this is not normal. This wave was an aberration. This wave was a monster wave. It appears three and a half maybe four meters tall. We both looked at each other and I said oh my god and it was so high and we both turned and immediately started swimming to shore. But they don't make it to shore and when the wave hits Tassie's thrown hard into a somersault. But then I stood up and I remember you know you stand up and you kind of jump

up and down and I looked around and I there was no sign of Mary. and there was no sign of Mary. She runs onto the beach screaming for help. Nobody moved. Everyone was drinking beer and putting sunscreen on and it was a horror movie. Desperate, she turns back and sees Mary has been pulled onto the beach. And by the time I got to Mary, someone was doing CPR on her. That someone is a paramedic on holiday from Toronto.

CPR was performed for approximately two minutes before a bradycardic pulse return. Tessie records what's unfolding. She wants accurate information, anything she can pass on to doctors if it can help Mary. She was unresponsive with agonizing pulse. Her eyes were open but her eyes were glassy. It was just horrifying. There was a crowd of people. When the ambulance arrived, she regained consciousness and is confused.

She regained consciousness and is confused. It's an eerily similar scene on the beach at Sayulita four years earlier. Although in his case, Noah Mintz never loses consciousness. All these people came. They loaded me on a surfboard and it was really hard because we were quite a bit out in the water at this point. and it was really hard because we were quite a bit out in the water at this point. A whole bunch of people managed to get me to shore. Then the sound of the people when they're all crowding around me and they're talking, all the people talking, you know, they're like, oh, this guy's paralyzed. And then some woman with, I think she had an Australian accent, she told me she was a doctor and I just said to her, I go, if I can't, if I don't regain movement ever again, I don't want to.

And she stopped me and she said, she said, don't finish that sentence. She goes, you have no idea what your injury is. You have no idea what's going to happen from this point on. you have no idea what your injury is. You have no idea what's going to happen from this point on. Noah is rushed to a private Mexican hospital and into intensive care. His neck has been broken in two places and he undergoes hours of surgery. A week later, Noah is still in rough shape,

but there is notable progress. With help, he's able to stand and even shuffle. And then I remember the neurosurgeon saying to me, she says, she goes, that's huge. That's like really huge that you can do that. So I think they all knew that there's a big potential I could walk. And preparations begin to airlift Noah back to Toronto.

For the first time since the accident, there's hope. For Mary though, hope is receding. While she does regain consciousness, her prognosis is poor. She remembers hitting her head and seeing bright yellow light. So whether that was death, whether that was the sun shining through the ocean to the sandy ocean floor, she remembers hitting her forehead and nose

on the ocean floor. And we didn't know then, but she was already a quadriplegic. It's several weeks before Mary is stable enough to be airlifted to Toronto. You know she said to me at one point if I can regain my arms that would be okay because then I could read and but you know it was clear that you know she was having trouble breathing on her own. There was so much damage.

She would need help, a lot of help breathing in order to live her life. And she decided she didn't want to live with supports. Mary asked to be removed from the oxygen and from all the other life-sustaining assistance she was receiving. And the whole time she kept reassuring me. She said, I've had a really good life. You know, don't worry, I've had a really good life. So she ended up dying in early January. The photo that accompanies her obituary conveys a vibrancy. She's got red lipstick, blonde hair held back by sunglasses, and lush green plants framing her. This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey

through the heart of Europe on a Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination-focused dining and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. With a variety of voyages and sailing dates to choose from, now is the time to explore Europe's waterways. Learn more at Viking.com. Essential reading for everyone, Health for All is the instant number one national bestseller by Jane Philpott, former federal minister of health and Ontario lead on primary care. With over six million Canadians lacking basic health care, Philpott offers a prescription

for a healthier society focusing on hope, belonging and purpose. Available in hardcover and audiobook, narrated by Jane Philpott. For Noah, his rehabilitation would begin in Toronto just as the world was shutting down from COVID. It would take months but not the years he'd been warned it could be. Aside from some minor nerve damage to his left side, Noah's made a full recovery. And here where he works at his post-production music studio, his two dogs stick close to his side, always ready for a walk. I'm insanely fortunate. I can revisit it and there's a little anxiety it happens when you revisit it when you think about

lying at that moment. When you think about lying face down, unable to move, it's like, it's like, it's like your stomach drops a little bit and you get all scared. You get really scared about it. After the accident, I remember sitting in the hospital waiting room Googling and, um, you know, the number of instances, especially in that area. Um, and it's like, how did we not know? Both Tassie and Pam are former journalists, long-time CBC producers. They were surprised they were unaware of the threat posed by rogue waves.

I've told many people about what happened to Mary, and I haven't encountered anybody who knows anything about rogue waves. We just got some terrifying video in of a storm battering a Norwegian cruise ship, a rogue wave. Once you are aware, stories of rogue waves like this one from ABC are not difficult to find. Reports of cruise ships being hit, people on shore getting swept away. In some cases, it's hard to say whether it was just rough seas or truly a rogue wave because to verify,

you need to know what the sea conditions were prior. It's widely believed that possibly the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded was detected in 2020 off the coast of Euclid, British Columbia. It was a whopping 17.6 meters in seas where the average waves were about six meters high. The chances of this happening are thought to be a once in a 1,300 year event. And while there's no evidence to suggest rogue waves are becoming more frequent with climate change,

the science does indicate that in some areas of the world, wave size will increase, necessarily making rogue waves bigger. Well, I was surprised that people had what seemed to be the exact same accident as Mary. And, you know, it could have been me. Just months before Mary's accident, a young woman from Saskatchewan had her own injury, also in Mexico. Corrie Moe married Dalton, the love of her life. Broadcasting the couple's honeymoon photos, CTV manages to starkly illustrate what started

out as an idyllic-looking beach holiday. The vacation was cut short after an accident while they were boogie boarding in the ocean. A rogue wave is what took her in. Corey Moe suffered a spinal injury and was also airlifted home. On the left we have the expected height of rogue waves and on the right we have the expected occurrence rate. Johannes Gemrück is pointing to a series of colour-coded graphs on his computer, models he's created to forecast rogue waves. So that's an area I would avoid if I would have to go out there. So that's high likelihood

of rogue wave occurrence and high wave heights. Johannes is a physical oceanographer with the University of Victoria. He's the scientist who analyzed and published about that possibly record-breaking rogue wave off the BC coast. The goal is that our research findings will be implemented

just like a weather forecast by Environment, Climate Change Canada and also by the warnings by the national parks. This work is years in the making, involving meticulous observations of wave and wind data and study to understand the physics behind rogue waves. The idea is not that they'll be able to predict a rogue wave at a precise time and date and exact spot, but rather the likelihood of rogue waves in a particular area over a number of days.

He says there are several groups internationally working on warning systems for rogue waves. Our approach is the closest to operational possibilities. His research is public, so he hopes that in future other places around the world will also be able to implement similar forecasts. And the implications are huge for mariners or anyone who comes in contact with the sea. His goal is to keep people safe. I think most people are not aware of rogue waves,

especially that it also can occur in the coastal area where most people interact with the ocean now. In fact, he says, for a long time, people thought rogue waves were a myth. Just stories that sailors want to tell when they come home. Even scientists thought that it's not possible to have a wave that's twice as high as the background wave. That changed in the mid-1990s when the first scientific observations of a rogue wave were recorded at a drilling platform in the North Sea. And later came the realization that rogue waves are actually not that rare.

So a rogue wave can happen every few days, once a week or so, but they are short-lived. And so it is rare that you are in that location at that time. But most of the time it happens during small sea states. So if you have half a meter wave background and then the rogue wave is 1.1 meter, you would notice that. It's only if it's at higher sea states that then a rogue wave would become dangerous. Johannes looked up the records for the day Tassie and Mary got hit by that rogue wave in Chakala. The average sea was indeed moderate, about one and a half meters. You would not usually expect a wave larger than three meters in its conditions. Johannes says there are general warnings about large waves along the west coast of Vancouver

Island, but even at that, they're relatively recent, maybe in the past five or ten years. So there are signs that be aware of dangerous waves, be aware of unexpected waves or sneaker waves, but that's a general warning. If there is a storm, yes, if the high sea states, many beaches have red flags and they are closed, but it's not a warning that there are individual large waves expected in otherwise calm conditions or moderate conditions. What I'd like is a sign that says, you know, danger, potential of rogue waves, something like that. Since Mary's death, Tassie has been asking the Mexican resort where they stayed to put

up specific warnings. Because a rogue wave to me, I think if people don't know what it is, it sounds scary. And it's different than a red flag on a beach or, you know, windy today or whatever. I did ask the resort whether following Mary's accident, if it was warning guests specifically about the possibility of rogue waves. In an email, a manager told me that they were deeply saddened by Mary's death and that they have taken steps to improve safety. She sent pictures of new warning signs they've erected, alerts of high tides and strong waves and one sign which warns people to observe the ocean for things like rough surf, riptides, and rogue waves.

For Tassie, the question of whether she and Mary did the right thing when the rogue wave was bearing down on them weighs on her. It was a split-second decision to head for land. Johannes Gemrich, the oceanographer, describes it as a gamble. describes it as a gamble. So there are two approaches. If the wave, the large wave is still far away, then best try to get to shore. But a wave is much faster than a swimmer.

So if the wave is already close, then you cannot out swim the wave there and so your best approach is probably to dive into it and because the force of the wave decreases with depth and so underwater it is less dangerous if you can dive through it and then come up on the rear side of the wave. I think the idea of a rogue wave, it's not sort of something we think about a lot. You need to be educated before you go into an ocean with waves that it's completely unpredictable. It's like dealing with a wild animal. It's completely unpredictable and you never turn your back

to the ocean until you're out of it. To me the ocean is, it's a dangerous place. I mean I don't want to scare people, but I want people to be aware that rogue waves are a real potential danger. So I'm doing this for Mary. ["The Wave"] That documentary, The Wave, was produced by Joan Weber from the CBC's audio documentary unit

with help from Elizabeth Hove. Today marks one year since Mary McNaught died as a result of her injuries from that rogue wave. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.