Dolphin Jumps on Boat, Crashing Wedding Anniversary

Dirk and Chrissie Frickman aren’t likely to ever forget their 18th wedding anniversary.

Looking back on it today, the couple recounted how a dolphin crashed the party aboard their boat on the way toward Dana Point Harbor -- leaving Chrissie with two broken ankles and the couple and their two children frazzled.

The Frickmans of Laguna Niguel, with their 12-year-old son and 16-year- old daughter, were heading back to the harbor on June 21 when some dolphins began swimming alongside their boat. But one got a little too close.

So close, in fact, it landed in the boat.

Dirk Frickman said the dolphin struck the railing of the boat and bounced inside, knocking down his wife and breaking both of her ankles.

Chrissie Frickman wound up pinned beneath the thrashing dolphin until her husband pulled her free. The dolphin continued thrashing in the back of the boat.

“It had bounced around so much it kind of injured its nose, injured its tail,” Dirk Frickman said. “The blood started kind of spattering all over and my daughter looked and was like, ‘Oh my God, please, don’t let it die, don’t let it die, don’t let it die.”’

Frickman radioed the Sheriff’s Department Harbor Patrol and told them what happened. The patrol responded and pulled Chrissie and the couple’s daughter from the boat to get them to shore and an ambulance.

“It was kind of a freak incident,” said Lt. Jeff Hallock of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. The department’s Harbor Patrol had never had to respond to anything like that before, he said.

After dropping off his wife and daughter, Dirk Frickman continued into the harbor, occasionally pouring water onto the dolphin.

When he made to the harbor, two people helped get a rope on the dolphin and get it back into the water. The wounded animal swam away.

“I was scared for the dolphin,” said Chrissie Frickman, who is still in a wheelchair recovering from her broken ankles. “Like, I was kind of hoping it would just jump back out, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I was scared for my kids, and, you know, you’re like, ‘Can they attack, how scared is it?’ You know, just these crazy thoughts go through your head, but I’m sure it was just as traumatized as we were.”

Dirk Frickman said it took about 25 minutes to free the dolphin, which had gotten lodged between chairs at the rear of the boat. His first attempts were futile until he realized he had to remove the chairs, Frickman said.

“Once we got the seats out of the way it wasn’t too bad and up on the dock she went,” Frickman said.

Two “bait guys” on the dock helped drag the dolphin up onto the dock with Frickman pushing, he said. Then they nudged the dolphin back into the ocean, he added.

All the while, Frickman said he comforted the dolphin by petting and dousing it with buckets of water.

“I could hear him making noises and squeaking like in the movies,” Frickman said. “It seemed like it knew and it calmed down when I dumped water on it and petted it.”

Orange County sheriff’s Deputy Damian Crowson of the Dana Point Harbor Patrol said the leaping dolphin contributed to a memorable Father’s Day. He was on standby while the rest of his team was attempting to rescue a family of nine from a boat sinking near the harbor.

Crowson heard Dirk Frickman’s radio call and raced over to help.

“As I pulled up it wasn’t what I expected,” Crowson told City News Service. “There was blood all around, similar to a crime scene.”

Dirk Frickman kept his cool while his family was “distressed,” Crowson said.

The deputy tossed Frickman a bucket to keep the dolphin wet as they raced back to the dock. Their first priority was getting Chrissie back safely as paramedics arrived. But Crowson said he had to leave it to Frickman and a couple of civilians to get the dolphin back into the water -- because he had to get back to the family aboard the sinking boat.

“I love animals, but the reason I left is people come first,” Crowson said.

The family’s boat took on water after striking the west reef in San Clemente, Crowson said. The rescue took nearly four hours. He hailed his co- workers, Deputies Anthony Larios and Paul McHugh and Sgt. Mike Scalise for saving the nine people and their dog.

“That incident was a little more frantic,” Crowson said.

City News Service and Patch staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.

Photos: Orange County Sheriff’s Department