A homeless man who was camped on the bluff looking over San Clemente’s T-Street rescued a baby shark that had beached itself on the sand. The man, who has only been identified by his first name, Kyle, had pitched a tent just a few feet from a sign that forbade camping.
It can be a hard thing to be homeless in Orange County. Rules and regulations make it nearly impossible to find a legal place to sleep at night, but those rules and regulations don’t change the fact that homeless populations still need a place to sleep at night.
According to Laylan Connelly at the Orange County Register, Carson Grier was checking the surf on the morning of May 26. As he sat in his car, he noticed the tent and recognized it as one he’d seen often for the last month. The homeless man who used it was a regular face in the area. “He’s not heckling anyone. He’s not real agro,” said Grier to the OCR.
Grier watched in surprise as Kyle pulled off his shoes, grabbed a plastic chair, and sprinted towards the waterline. He pulled out his phone and hit record, noticing a four-foot shark thrashing in the shore pound. Using the chair, Kyle attempted to push the juvenile shark back into the water before grabbing it by the tail and pulling it back into the water. After a few attempts, the shark managed to swim away.
According to the OC Register, Grier spoke with Kyle after the rescue. As it turns out, it wasn’t Kyle’s first go-around playing the good Samaritan. “Kyle told him that it wasn’t his first time saving a sea creature,” Laylan Connelly wrote. “That one time, he helped out a large stingray that was on shore with a hook in its mouth. When he started patting the stingray to stimulate it to start moving, he said a bunch of babies started popping out, which he also helped get into the ocean.”
