Vanessa Bull and her 7-year-old daughter Mireina were swept roughly 100 feet into the surf at Baker Beach on June 19 during an active National Weather Service Beach Hazards Statement. Bystanders rescued them; both survived. The National Park Service, which manages Baker Beach without lifeguard towers, has not responded to questions about more visible warnings.

Baker Beach sits at the edge of a national park, managed by the National Park Service, posted as an unsafe swimming beach. On June 19 at about 3:15 p.m., a National Weather Service Beach Hazards Statement warning of sneaker waves was active for that stretch of coast. None of that reached Vanessa Bull when she pulled up from Sacramento with her children — she said GPS put their arrival at 3 p.m., and the wave took her 7-year-old daughter Mireina fifteen minutes later.

"I did not know at all, or I would not have taken my children out there," Bull told ABC7 in an interview published Monday.

A sneaker wave — estimated by Bull at around nine feet — pulled Mireina off the sand at the beach's northeastern rocky section and carried her roughly 100 feet into the surf. Bull ran in after her daughter and jumped into the water.

"When I looked back and I just saw her head at the top, and I just ran and I jumped in and I tried my hardest to get her," she said. "But that wave that she was on top of came crashing down on me. And all of a sudden, I could not see her anymore."

Bull said she got hold of Mireina's sweater as more waves hit them. "I grabbed her sweater, and then another wave, boom, came and threw us underwater, and we did a whole 360 flip underneath the water. But I just kept the tightest grip on her sweater so she was not going anywhere."

Bystanders waded in and pulled both to shore before San Francisco Fire Department units arrived. SFFD Captain Jonathan Baxter credited the civilians with saving their lives. Bull said she lost consciousness after handing Mireina over to rescuers. Both were transported to hospital in serious condition; both survived, their conditions later upgraded to non-life-threatening.

Baker Beach has no lifeguard towers. The NPS, which oversees the beach under the Presidio umbrella, runs limited-hour beach safety patrols — but SFFD is the city's only 24-hour water rescue agency, and Lieutenant Mariano Elias said the department logged more than 200 water rescues last year. The NPS's own Baker Beach page warns visitors of "large waves, undertow and rip currents." It does not use the words "sneaker wave." As of ABC7's Monday report, the National Park Service had not responded to questions about whether it would consider more visible warnings or flags during dangerous surf conditions.

Bull said the answer should be a closure. "I feel like beaches should be closed if the waves are like that," she said.

The June 19 incident is the latest in a string of wave emergencies along Bay Area shores this month. Two Bay Area college students died after being pulled into the water near Santa Cruz roughly two weeks earlier. A fisherwoman was swept 30 feet into the surf south of Pacifica Pier the same week as the Baker Beach rescue — anglers with a rope pulled her back. Baker Beach itself saw a fisherman swept unconscious 40 yards offshore on May 29.

Bull said she does not plan to take her children back to the ocean anytime soon. The NPS has not indicated whether anything at the water's edge will be different the next time a family from out of town walks down to the sand.