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Video by Michael Fujiwara
The extraordinary video taken by Michael Fujiwara showed the whole incident when the California sea lion pulled the girl in by her dress. An unindentified man quickly jumped and grabbed the girl before the sea lion could pull her under water. He handed the girl to onlookers on the dock and they helped him out of the water. The whole episode took only a few seconds.
The family and their party left immediately afterwards. "They were pretty shaken up," said Fujiwara, a student at Simon Fraser University.. "Her family were just in shock."
The quick-thinking rescuer, also left after the incident, his clothes still dripping wet.
"I've never seen anything like this before," said Fujiwara, who ran after the family to make sure the girl wasn't injured. "But people do usually get too close and they don’t realize they are dangerous, wild animals despite looking cute."
Fortunately, neither the girl or the rescuer appeared to be harmed although she lost a pair of glasses.
Authorities showed little sympathy for the girl or her family and faulted them for the incident. Port officials and wild animal experts said the family should have observed the signs warning people not to feed or bother the marine mammals.
Here it is again in slow motion:
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