Dustin Ostrand and wife, Angela Fioretti, in Switzxerland where Fioretti is working on a post-docturate fellowship in solar energy science. (Photo courtesy of Dustin Ostrand)
By ERIKA I. RITCHIE | Orange County Register
It was about 4 p.m. Sunday, July 22, and the Dana Point native and his wife, Angela Fioretti, were packing up from a spot near the waterfall. Ostrand, 31, was preparing to take one last photo of the Saut du Doubs when he saw a man plummeting through the air from the waterfall’s highest point, about 80 feet above the water’s surface.
“I instantly realized it was a pretty bad situation,” Ostrand said during a phone interview from Switzerland on Monday. “I could see he hit the water with his back and was floating face-down.”
Ostrand stripped down to his shorts, scrambled toward a ledge about 65 feet above the water and recalled his Junior Lifeguard training at Strands Beach in Dana Point.
“From there I leapt out to where I thought it was the deepest at the base of the waterfall,” he said, adding he could tell by the way the man fell that he likely had not hit the bottom. “I knew if I didn’t act fast, this guy would die.”
Ostrand surfaced about 20 feet away and swam over to the man.