Two Bay Area College Students Die After Being Swept Out to Sea at Santa Cruz Beach

Two young women from Fremont, California died last week after being swept into the ocean along a stretch of Santa Cruz County coastline that authorities say has seen a dramatic and troubling spike in rescues. The deaths have drawn new attention to a category of ocean hazard — the sneaker wave — that kills people on the West Coast every year, often at beaches that look calm and inviting right up until the moment a wave arrives.

Harshita Nair, 21, a UC Berkeley student studying legal studies, died shortly after being rescued on June 10. Mahial Sran, 20, a San José State University student pursuing public health and psychology, died two days later on June 13. The two friends had grown up together and graduated from Washington High School in Fremont in 2023. Both were expected to graduate college in 2027. They were at Bonny Doon Beach in Santa Cruz County on June 10 when the ocean took them.

The Keyhole and the Tide

The geography of Bonny Doon Beach plays a direct role in what makes it dangerous. The beach is connected to nearby Yellow Bank Beach through a narrow passage locals call "the keyhole," but that connection closes as the tide rises.

"Panther and Yellow Bank Beach are separated by what we call the keyhole," said Santa Cruz County Fire Capt. Kyle Breton. "And as soon as the tide comes in or gets high, the keyhole is inaccessible. And so, what happens is people go through the keyhole thinking they're gonna have a great day at the beach, and then all of a sudden, they get cut off, and options run out very, very quickly."

After a witness called 911 around 5 p.m., eight rescue swimmers entered the water. Responders pulled both Sran and Nair from the ocean alive, but both died in the days that followed.

Authorities believe the two women were sleeping near the keyhole when a wave swept them in. "Both of these patients, we believe, were originally sleeping right at the keyhole, which is an area that we're finding catches people unaware," Breton said. Sran's father later noted that his daughter's bag and phone never got wet — suggesting the wave reached them where they lay, well back from the water's edge. The detail illustrates a defining characteristic of the hazard responsible: sneaker waves can reach people who believe they are safely clear of the ocean's reach.

What a Sneaker Wave Is

A sneaker wave, sometimes called a rogue shore wave, is a sudden surge of water that runs up a beach significantly further than the preceding waves, arriving with little or no visual warning. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration defines them as unusually large run-up events. They are caused by long-period ocean swells — wave trains with intervals of 15 seconds or more — that are generated by large storms far out in the Pacific, sometimes thousands of miles away.

Because those storms can be distant and the weather at the beach may be pleasant, people have no reason to expect the energy that has been traveling across the ocean for days to arrive in a single violent surge. Since 2012, NOAA records and media reports have documented at least two dozen deaths linked to sneaker waves along the U.S. West Coast.

The National Weather Service does not issue standalone sneaker wave warnings but does include information about hazardous shore break and long-period swell in Beach Hazard Statements. A Beach Hazard Statement was in effect for the Santa Cruz area at the time of the June 10 incident.

A One-Mile Stretch With an Alarming Record

Santa Cruz County officials have not been quiet about the danger at this particular section of coast. In the month before the deaths of Nair and Sran, rescuers had already responded to five incidents along a roughly one-mile stretch of coastline between Yellow Bank and Bonny Doon Beach. For context, that entire section of beach typically sees six to eight ocean rescues in an entire year.

The combination of factors at play — sneaker wave risk, long-period Pacific swell, a tidal trap formed by the keyhole, and a beach popular with visitors — creates conditions that emergency responders have watched escalate through the early summer of 2026.

The People Who Were Lost

Harshita Nair was known at UC Berkeley for her dedication to service. UC Berkeley Student Body President Abigail Verino described her as someone who "always made the effort to show up" and who embodied belonging to a community larger than herself. Her internship work had focused on serving marginalized communities of color.

Mahial Sran was pursuing dual interests in public health and psychology at San José State. The two had been friends since high school and were spending the day together at the coast.

Anyone planning to visit California beaches this summer — or any rocky, wave-exposed shoreline — should check for active Beach Hazard Statements through the National Weather Service before going out and treat warning zones as genuine life-safety information.

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