Posted on 12/04/2008 4:10:43 PM PST by BGHater
A romantic marriage proposal on the Oregon coast turned deadly for the bride-to-be when a wave swept her out to sea. Scott Napper had taken 22-year-old Leafil Alforque to Proposal Rock near Neskowin Beach to pop the question at a place that got its name from couples ready to marry. Napper and Alforque had been dating since they met on the Internet in 2005.
But Alforque had arrived in Oregon on a visa from the Philippines just three days before the fateful trip to the coast.
Napper said the tide had receded around Proposal Rock on Saturday when the couple began to walk to it. He planned to propose and give her the ring he carried in his pocket.
About 10 feet from the rock, a wave about 3 feet high suddenly came toward them.
"I turned into it to keep from getting pulled under it," Napper said.
By the time he turned to find Alforque, only 4-foot-11 and 93 pounds, she had been caught by the receding waters.
"She was about 30 feet away, getting swept away," Napper said.
The 45-year-old Silverton man tore off his jacket to get rid of any extra weight, and when he looked up again she was gone.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
She was overcome by a wave of emotion.
She was swept off her feet.
She took the plunge.
Make that Ore-gone
Some posters have a vile contempt for human life. This is hardly Darwin Award material -- could and does happen to a wide range of people.
I'll second that. First thing I thought of. Reality set in, and maybe she didn't meet some expectation of his.
Looks like the proposal was a wash, in any case.
Something smells fishy.
I call BS!
He almost won her over, but the tide turned. He knew in an instant their love affair was all washed up.
Yep. I come from a commercial fishing family. The Oregon coast is gnarly, I'm told, and that water is damned cold. Enchante writes: "... and the whole thing about she was gone by the time he took off his jacket — that sounds very hard to believe ...."
Not for me, not if she's tiny, not if she's not used to fairly big waves and certainly not if she was wearing clothes or boots that could weight with water quickly and sink, and not if the water is swelling and surging, especially on a rocky shore. The ocean is a whole 'nother ballgame when it comes to being in the water -- this from a person who played in pretty big waves a lot as a kid and first SCUBA dove at the age of 14.
In my home fishing town, we had a lot of wonderful tourists, great, friendly folks, come to the coast for a weekend of fishing from California's central valley, Bakersfield, Fresno, the oil towns of Taft, the farm towns of Delano and Visalia. They often underestimated the ocean and its deceptive calm. My fisherman brother sadly named an area outside the breakwater "the Bakersfield Triangle" because of the tourists lost there every year. I say "sadly" because neither he nor any of his fellow professional fishermen took any joy from it nor found any real amusement in it. They all knew enough pros who made simple mistakes or miscalls and sometimes lost their boats or their lives.
Oh my God. My heart goes out to him.
Suspicious.
You said — “Cops don’t suspect foul play? I’m curious to know why...”
Well..., if you’re from Oregon, you would know... LOL...
People are taught there to not turn your back on the ocean and keep your eyes on it. There are rogue waves and they come out of nowhere. So, you’ve got to keep your eyes open. They been known to toss people around, suck them under and throw those big beach logs on people. There have been instances of rogue waves tossing logs up into parking lots (next to the shore where people get out to see the beach) and crushing cars.
So, this is not weird or strange, unless you think of rogue waves being weird or strange. If you don’t want to lose your life, you have better keep a good eye on those waves, because they’ll *get you*...
i feel very sorry for the woman (22) but the guy(45)...
a 3 foot wave?? you have got to be kidding. wasn’t he holding her hand?
he turned around only to see her 30 feet away and still moving? seriously? and why take your eyes off her? why not run in and take the jacket off while running?
sounds like the girlie-man factor was strong with this one.
You said — “Huh? Without a body, how could they NOT suspect foul play? Looks like Joran Van Der Sloot and Scott Peterson used the wrong defense.”
Well, that’s because bodies do disappear when they’re sucked out to the ocean. Sometimes they come back and sometimes they don’t.
I remember (a long while back) a church that I went to had a youth group go to the coast and one of the guys got caught by a bigger wave and knocked off his feet, on the rocks and into the ocean. The group couldn’t get to him and he kept going further and further out to sea (this was before cell phones, too...). And so, before any help could arrive, he was gone and he was never found again...
It happens and you’re told in Oregon to watch out for the rogue waves and not to turn your back on the ocean and keep your eyes on those waves. You can be up on the beach and away from the breaking waves and then, all of a sudden, a rogue wave can come out of nowhere and suck you out to the ocean.
The *power* of the pull of the water is immense — if you’ve every tried standing there in any significant depth of water. If you lose your footing, even on shallow water, it will suck you out if you don’t gain your footing real quickly...
If I were a homicide detective, I would look deeper.
You said — “Sorry to say it all makes me suspicious - unless there are any witnesses who saw the whole chain of events as described.”
It’s not suspicious to Oregonians who know the beach... LOL...
You keep your eyes open and it doesn’t take much to get knocked off your feet and then you’re in trouble, in a hurry...
And if you’re around rocks (which they were from the story), it’s easy to lose sight of someone and with the waves coming in, you can lose sight of the person in the troughs.
Personally, I would never go into the ocean to get someone. I’d call for help but that’s it for me. If I did, it would be the end of me, too...
You said — “Murder.”
Well, if you were in Oregon, and around the beaches, you would have been told to be wary of situations like this, where a rogue wave comes along and knocks you off your feet and then you’re swept out to the ocean.
This is not suspicious — this is the Oregon Coast...
You said — “The story on the Komo news site is really weird- the stuff he was saying was really weird (like he already returned the wedding dress and that he needed to get on with his life.”
—
This is what they said in the story that you gave a link to...
There were 20-foot seas that afternoon and no visibility due to fog. The Coast Guard was unable to respond from its Depoe Bay station due to the dangerous water, and a Coast Guard helicopter crew from Astoria had to turn back after repeatedly being struck by birds.
A second helicopter crew finally reached the area but had to turn back after 15 minutes due to the rough weather.
If there were 20-foot seas that day, and the Coast Guard helicopter *had to turn back* — then it was rough weather that day and the ocean would have been *very much rougher* than a normal day.
And in light of that, it’s no wonder that she got swept out so fast. It’s dangerous on the Oregon Coast and you don’t turn your back to the ocean and you don’t want to fall down or lose your footing in the surf, or it might be the end of you.
Believe me, 20-foot seas would be a very rough surf that day....
For another, a "wave" even only three feet isn't a thing that washes gently ashore, but on a rocky shoreline, crops up under surges and rocks and undercurrents, looks fairly benight, and all the sudden becomes like the swipe of a tiger's paw, and remember ... it's damned cold.
Also, unlike in Florida, in Oregon you're likely wearing lots of heavy clothing that will weight up with water and sink you like a stone, and pulling it off while running (or trying to safely jump off rocks) may not be an option.
Just some things to think of ... I loved Florida's shoreline, by the way, but found the whole Atlantic coast and coastal seas a whole helluva lot different than my beloved California coast, which I know fairly well from San Diego to Fort Bragg.
You said — “Such waves kill unsuspecting beach walkers with some regularity every year. If you haven’t seen a “sneaker wave” you can’t really imagine its danger.”
Yeah, in general, land-bound people just don’t realize the roughness of the seas, especially around Oregon and Washington. It’s not like being down in Galveston where you have six-inch waves... LOL...
I mean, having 20-foot seas that day and the Oregon Coast Guard had to turn back after 15 minutes — that tells you how bad it was.
Those people should have been more careful.... It’s dangerous out there...
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