Montana Man Drowns After Saving His Daughter In Hawaii

A 46-year-old man from Montana reportedly drowned Tuesday afternoon after he rescued his 15-year-old daughter from drowning while vacationing in Maui, an island in the Central Pacific part of the Hawaiian archipelago.

According to a report in Hawaii News Now, first responders immediately went to the rescue after they received reports of two people being swept into the ocean by a large wave at the Olivine Pools in Kahakuloa, an area on the north side of West Maui.

Witnesses at the scene said the man jumped into the water as soon as he saw his daughter was knocked into the ocean by a large wave. The unidentified man was able to get his daughter back onto a rocky cliff with the help of other people present at the scene, who used a makeshift towel rope to pull her up.

However, witnesses said when they turned back to help the father, he was floating on the water, face down. Reports state that at 12:58 p.m. local time (6:58 p.m. EDT), Maui firefighters and lifeguards also arrived only to find the Montana man unresponsive in the water.

The man was later declared dead by the paramedics who arrived at the scene. His daughter, who suffered non-life threatening injuries, was later released to family members.

Back in February, a man died in Hesperia, a city in San Bernardino County, California, after he jumped into an aqueduct trying to save his 9-year-old son. According to a report in Los Angeles Times, the unidentified 34-year-old man and his son were both biking on an asphalt path near the aqueduct when the boy lost control of his bike and fell in.

Authorities did not release the name of the man but said he jumped into the cold, swift-moving water and never resurfaced though his son made it out alive.

Cindy Bachman, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department had said at the time, “This man did what any reasonable person would do under these circumstances, he saved his son. This is a very tragic accident.”

Reports state that the man’s body was discovered two hours after the incident took place.

"It's just kind of slippery, it's not like if you fell in you could just climb back out. It had a very tragic ending, and if you're not a strong swimmer, then you really don't have a chance in that water,” Bachman said.

In a fairly similar incident, another 34-year-old unidentified man drowned at sea near Gordons Bay, a harbor town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, in December 2017 while trying to save his 10-year-old son.

Reports state that National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) — a voluntary non-profit organization in South Africa — responded to the incident and later confirmed that both the man and his son were fishing at the bay when waves swept the child into the surf.

The child was saved and sent to the hospital but a seven-minute search revealed the father’s body which was then pulled out of the water.