Spot on about the “spectators union”.
There’s not a lot of information in the SF Gate link except for the fact the drowned soul was standing with at least his head above. No mention of surf if any or type of bottom, but in any case those are not go-no go factors. Nor was his estimated weight of 300 lbs.
I’ll make only one assumption; he was standing in salt water. And even that makes a difference only because a fat man is more buoyant than one with less body fat.
I was trained for life guard certification by toughest teacher in the DC metro area. At age 52 or so he was no more than 5ft 6in tall and maybe 150 lbs. Yet he had no trouble in turning any of my forty or so male classmates and locking them up in a cross chest carry and taking them to the shallow end even we were told to fight him as hard as we could. We were all extremely good swimmers with excellent endurance and probably at our peak fitness levels and most substantially stronger, yet he took us all. Note I did say that he lifted any of out of the water, just to a shallower depth where the victims head was safely above water and non swimmers could even help.
A key element of the training was to assume that every victim was panicked and should be approached carefully as they tend to try and climb your head. A chest kick and turning the victim quickly gave one a hard hold. A feistier victim was taken under utilizing the panic reflex to release the rescuer.
To cut a long story short even th smallest woman in our class succeeded against her largest male counter parts.
End of story is that he could have been swept off his feet put into a hold and walked his floating whale carcass to shallower water where further assistance was available. I’ve done with big nasty drunks and have seen women do the same.
Anybody could have twisted a shirt, slacks or a towel to offer this soul a chance to change his mind withou endangering themselves.
No comment on the union folk.
I grew up in a rural area where rescue is seldom readily available.
A few years back, a friend of mine ended a hostage situation while police watched from the road. A drunk next door was holding his family hostage with a crossbow.
My friend’s house shared a driveway with the house next door so the houses were pretty close. The hostage taker asked my friend for a cigarette. When my friend went across the drive the police didn’t like it much but it was over about 5 seconds later.
When the guy reached out the door for the smoke, my friend grabbed him by the arm and yanked him out so fast the guy dropped the bow and was on the ground before he knew what happened.
In retrospective, its probably a good thing my friend ended the situation rather than police.