Lost & Found: How Steve Harbaugh’s Search Party Rescued a Paddleboarder
The area behind the Seven Mile Beach where Harbaugh found the paddleboarder.
Don’t call me a hero, Steve Harbaugh says. He only did what anyone else would have done in the same situation.
But the fact remains that it was Harbaugh who found the 25-year-old paddleboarder who had been missing for more than four hours. He, his 8-year-old son Zach and his brother-in-law Eric Eisenhart jumped into action.
“I think it was dumb luck I found him,” says Harbaugh, 47, who has stayed in touch with the paddleboarder since the Sept. 3 incident.
Here’s how it happened. The paddleboarder, who prefers to remain anonymous – let’s call him “Dave” – went out from the Stone Harbor inlet near Carnival Bay around 2:45pm. That was his usual routine.
When Dave didn’t return within an hour as he usually did after doing a loop around the bay, his father called the police. Harbaugh, a Stone Harbor-based housing developer, began following the situation on social media.
“They were looking for a 250-pound, male paddleboarder, and it was about to get dark.”
That’s when Harbaugh, his son, and his brother-in-law took his 23-foot boat out to Carnival Bay to start looking.
“I left Stone Harbor Basin for Carnival Bay,” he explains, detailing his route. I immediately headed south and did the 1-mile radius down under the free bridge out to the inlet in Wildwood ... It was kind of eerie. Around 7 o’clock it’s starting to get dark. Probably an hour into our search we made one more loop around the same route as before.”
Success.
“Around 7:25, we found a dark shadow coming out of reeds on a paddleboard,” Harbaugh continues. “As we were approaching a good hundred feet away, a boat went between him and us and didn’t even stop.
“When we got to him, he was disoriented. I said, ‘Are you OK, buddy? Can I give you a ride back?’ and pointed toward Carnival Bay. He agreed. My son gave him water and he started to stare.”
By the time they finally got back to shore, the paddleboarder’s grateful parents were there waiting for him. “They took him to the hospital and gave him IVs,” Harbaugh continues. “I called him the next day to see how he was.
“I wanted my son to see him when he wasn’t dehydrated or suffering from hyperthermia from being in the water. We sat and talked for about an hour.”
Saving “Dave” was one thing. But Harbaugh now wants to make sure something like this never happens again.
Soon afterward, he sent a detailed letter to the mayor of Stone Harbor, Judith Davies-Dunhour, with a four-point plan should a similar situation occur.
Harbaugh has been invited to address the Borough Council at some point in the future.
For now, though, he’s just happy Dave is safe as he gets ready to open his latest version of his Christmas village that collects thousands of donated toys for needy children.
The idea first came to him shortly after his father, George, died in 2018. As Christmas neared, he said he was having trouble getting in the holiday mood.
“I didn’t feel like decorating the house for Christmas,” he says, “but about a month before I kept hearing his voice saying ‘Go for it.’ I always wanted to do one of these Griswold crazy houses,” referring to “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”
“So, I decided to do it. I bought 300 cases of C 9 bulbs and buried myself in work decorating it. I got an RV and put some mannequins in and all of a sudden I turned and there was all this traffic.
“I said to my wife, Gina, ‘It would be neat to capitalize on this, so why don’t we fill the RV with toys?’ We collected 4,000 toys that year for underprivileged children.”
That was just the start of it. The following year, Harbaugh expanded things and, working in conjunction with St. Christopher Hospital, collected 8,500 toys. Together, they also created a secret elf program.
It’s only grown from there, not even pausing during the pandemic, to the point Harbaugh in 2021 purchased land to build a true Christmas village.
“I started Googling Christmas villages and they all had ice skating rinks, carousels and vendor huts,” he says. “So, I secured some land and bought an ice-skating rink and carousel and I built a Christmas village.
“I like doing it. What it’s allowed me to do is kind of honor my dad. The charity we have is called ‘George’s House.’ Last year, we had 44,000 go through the village and collected over 20,000 toys.”
That’s not all. Within the last year or so, Harbaugh has joined forces with Family Promise, which fixes transition homes for displaced people.
“You go in, fix them up and have families who are displaced live there,” he says. “They’re allowed to use that home for 3-6 months. Fulton Bank teaches them finance, and opens a checking account for them and helps them find better jobs.
“We found a woman who was living in a displaced hotel in Camden. She had seven children but was doing a lot of charity work. We ended up renting and fixing up her home in Camden. We prepaid her rent for the year and surprised her. Now she helps me with the village and the program.
“I call it getting back on your feet. Now, through sponsors at Harbaugh Village, we’ve been able to find money for three more transition homes.
“Where it hits you is when my mother, Barb, comes to the village and says, ‘Your father would be proud.’ I look at what I did. I went from trying not to think about Dad to one of the greatest things I’ve ever done. I love it and I don’t get paid a dime. I’d rather do that than anything else.”
There’s a word for someone like that: Someone who’s selfless and who tries to put others ahead of him. Someone who’ll come to your rescue. It’s a word Steve Harbaugh won’t want to hear.
Hero.
For information on Harbaugh Village and other holiday events, visit harbaughvillage.com