So says Coastside water watcher Tim Fellars, one of two State Parks officers who received Governor’s Medals of Valor last week for a water rescue they performed last summer off Moss Beach. The second recipient is lifeguard James Nothhelfer.
Fellars said the award ceremony was “unreal,” compared to his typical day.
  
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“It was totally surreal,” Fellars said. “I kind of thought the pinnacle of my career was to get mentioned in a few articles in the Half Moon Bay Review.
“It was so surreal you’re not even sure it happened because there’s nothing to relate it to, to put it in context, and it might not ever happen again in your career,” he said.
But near-shore calamities occur about as often as the changing of tides on the Coastside. The incident meriting the medals was difficult and dangerous, but nothing extraordinary, Fellars said.
With only a paddleboard and a rescue tube, Nothhelfer and Fellars towed five hypothermic adults and one extremely hypothermic child to safety after the boaters’ vessel overturned in high seas in June, near a shallow reef less than 1,000 feet off the coast of Moss Beach. The boat sank minutes after the rescue. All six people survived.
State Parks Ranger Nelle Lyons remembers watching the two men swim through cold, choppy water to reach the vessel, then gather the distressed boaters and tow each person to a Pillar Point Harbor patrol boat nearby.
“It was pretty dramatic,” said Lyons, who witnessed the rescue from the bluffs overlooking the capsized boat. “When I arrived on scene, I saw one guy clinging to the bow of the boat. That was definitely telling that it was a major event.”
Established in 1959, the Governor’s Medal of Valor is the highest honor the state bestows on public servants. This year, the governor honored 27 people with the Medal of Valor. Nothhelfer and Fellars join the ranks of about 400 recipients of the award who have risked their lives to save someone or protect state property – 26 of them are State Parks officers, including Nothhelfer and Fellars.
They are, however, the first State Parks rangers stationed on the San Mateo County coast to be the honored with the accolade, and the first State Parks rangers to receive the award in 13 years.
Fellars said being singled out for the award was “a little embarrassing,” given that his fellow rangers are performing the duty every day. State Parks San Mateo Coast Sector Superintendent Paul Keel says there have “certainly been some rescues that were probably worthy” of the award in his tenure on the Coastside.
In his 22 years as a lifeguard, Fellars estimates he’s assisted with between 200 and 300 rescues. Nothhelfer didn’t return numerous calls for this story, and Fellars suspects that’s because he is hesitant to bask in the limelight.
“You never really expect that kind of recognition for just being a lifeguard,” Fellars said.
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