Amanda Davila, Staff Writer
During the summer of 2015 at Huntington Beach’s U.S. Open, Amanda Davila could win an Oscar because she created a chaotic scene due to her fear of sharks.
“I had gone to the U.S. Open with my best friend Leslie, but this was a different experience,” Davila said. “I’m not one to create a scene.”
Davila talked about sighting what she thought were two sharks while being inside the ocean. She had seen two fins in the ocean; her first instinct was to start yelling about the so-called sharks. She immediately went to let the lifeguard to let them know what she had seen, but the lifeguards couldn’t make out what Davila was telling them because of how bad she was crying.
“It was a mistake; I swear I would have never done that,” Davila says. “Anyone would have freaked out if they saw sharks in the water, even if they weren’t exactly sharks.”
Throughout the chaos she created, she found out those two sharks in the water were actually two dolphins. She received some unfriendly stares and created enemies because of how she disturbed the beach, especially from a mother with three small crying children.
“This mom probably hated me for making her three small children cry,” Davila said. “I felt terrible.”
Leslie Murillo, who had gone with Davila, also provided more details about what had happened that day. Murillo being terrified of ocean water was more than happy to not have been involved with Davila’s chaos.
“I’m terrified of the ocean because you have no idea what is around you” Murillo said, “so I wasn’t in the water with Amanda when she yelled and I am so happy I wasn’t.”
Davila could have had a nice normal day at the beach. Instead she created a mess believing she had seen two sharks while swimming in the ocean. Lifeguards quickly began to evacuate people from the water; in the end to find out those two sharks were instead two dolphins.
