Gus McDaniel, a teenager stranded in frigid waters off Cannon Beach on Jan. 13, wanted to stay clear of Haystack Rock for fear that the waves would crush him against the rock.

Gus McDaniel was almost certain he was going to die.

Adrift in the waves off Cannon Beach on the night of Jan. 13, he was clinging to a boogie board, exhausted, the 19-year-old told The Oregonian.

Though it was dark, he could see the looming outline of Haystack Rock. It was not a reassuring beacon telling him he was close to making it back to shore. He knew the waves — some of them reaching 10 feet in height — threatened to crush him against the rocks if he got too close.

He was scared and had been in the water so long that he was freezing, even under his wetsuit. But still, he tried to focus on holding onto his board and preserving his strength in case rescuers were able to find him.

Then he saw a small blinking red light off in the distance. It was growing bigger, bit by bit.

He realized it might be another person. He kept calling out, over and over, as he’d been doing since his ordeal began.

Soon the source of the light took form out of the darkness: It was a man — Cannon Beach Rural Fire District Lt. Koa Lyu, it turned out. Lyu was paddling toward McDaniel on a rescue surfboard.

McDaniel realized he might not die this day, after all.

A few days earlier, McDaniel had made the roughly 10-hour drive to the Oregon coast from his home in Reno, Nevada, with his girlfriend and a couple of friends. They wanted to have a few fun days in and around the ocean before returning to the land-locked Silver State, he said.

The group rented a place in Oceanside, and after a day in Tillamook to tour the iconic cheese factory, they made their way to Cannon Beach, where they rented wetsuits and boogie boards and set out to catch some waves in the late afternoon.

At first, they enjoyed messing around in the surf close to shore, McDaniel said, adding that he’d surfed before but had never been on a boogie board.

When the waves started getting bigger, McDaniel said he was unconcerned.

“I was, like, ‘Now we’re going to get some good waves,’” he remembered. “‘I’m going to get the perfect one — the last one.’”

With the day’s light fading, he paddled past where he could touch the bottom, and soon he was trying and failing to catch the waves. They were hitting him while strong currents simultaneously pulled him away from shore. When he started to paddle back toward the beach, where his friends and girlfriend were safely waiting for him, he found that the waves and current were holding him back.

“I didn’t want to go towards Haystack Rock,” he said, recognizing that the waves would likely bash him against the 200-foot formation if he got too close. “Maneuvering at that point was kind of hard.”

Darkness fell, and he began trying to conserve his strength and stay warm. After a while he noticed lights coming from the shore, poking out into the dark. His friends had notified authorities that he was lost out in the ocean.

Soon, the blinking red light — and Lyu — appeared. The firefighter and lifeguard had stood waist-high in the water to judge the currents and figure out where McDaniel might be, and then set off from the beach. He pulled McDaniels onto his surfboard.

“The guy was lucky he was alive and still floating,” Lyu told The Oregonian. “It was a cold night.”

Now on the rescue board, McDaniel asked Lyu if his girlfriend and friends were OK.

“He told me my friends were fine,” McDaniel said. “He said, ‘Your girlfriend’s definitely very worried.’”

When the two got to shore, McDaniel turned and gave Lyu a hug.

“He gave me a fist bump and was, like, ‘Glad you’re okay, man,’” McDaniel remembered. “I don’t even know how to express my gratitude and my family’s gratitude.”

After he’d been evaluated by a doctor and had a chance to warm up, McDaniel had a Coke from McDonald’s and reflected on his close call.

“I definitely enjoy everything a lot more now,” he said. “I was, like, ‘Oh my god, that was the best Coke I had in my entire life.’”