PACIFIC CITY, Ore. -- The father of a 14-year-old athlete whose arm was severed in a surfing accident said he's just happy his son survived.

"We're so blessed that he's alive...I held him all the way to the hospital. Every time he closed his eyes, I thought that could be the last time," Cole Ortega's father said during a news conference in Portland Tuesday.

Cole Ortega, of Bend, is still in serious condition at Legacy Emanuel Hospital, where he taken by helicopter after Sunday's accident near Pacific City. Another surfer found the severed arm and brought it to the beach so it could be taken with Ortega to the hospital.

 Slideshow: Photos of Cole Ortega

"He’s a real fighter…we have so much confidence in his own drive and will to survive and recover as much as possible," Ortega's father said.

He added that his son is able to talk and communicate and laugh. In addition to being a top-ranked snowboarder in his age group, Cole Ortega is also a talented golfer with ambitious ahtletic goals and dreams, his father said.

Those who witnessed the 14-year-old surfer lose his arm in a collision with an incoming dory boat off Cape Kiwanda say the accident resulted from a series of unfortunate circumstances in a spot with increasingly heavy ocean traffic.

Slideshow: Scene of the surfing accident

Tillamook County Sheriff Todd Anderson said his department is investigating whether to cite anyone for the incident. A sheriff's deputy, Charles Reeder, said the area where the collision took place has become busier in recent years.

"You've got windsurfers (and) surfers. You've got hang gliders (and) people waiting on the shore line. You've got all kinds of different user groups down there," Reeder said Monday. "You've got swimmers, too, and kayakers. And when you put all of those together in one spot, it doesn't always work out, like we found out yesterday."

Dories have been launching and landing directly off the beach for decades, part of the local tourist and fishing lore. But surfers and other users have started to appear there in greater numbers.

Investigators said Cole Ortega was surfing with his 16-year-old sister and her boyfriend in eight- to ten-foot swells before he was struck by the dory boat returning to shore.

Surf suddenly swelled

A witness, Ned Brewer, 51, of Portland, said he has been surfing at Pacific City since 1992. He said Sunday started out with a small swell, ideal to launch the dories, and most of the surfers were actually away from that spot, working beach break waves.

After the dories had launched, he said, the swell rose dramatically, luring the surfers back to catch the best waves in a channel where the boats launch. The high swell also meant that dories needed to start coming into shore, bringing everyone together.

He was in a line of about 20 surfers when suddenly a friend appeared next to him, saying he was almost hit by a boat. The surfer told Brewer, "I could feel the prop go over my legs."

Moments later, there was yelling.

Surfers heard a scream, scrambled to help

"I heard someone scream, 'Oh, my God!' and I started paddling toward him," Brewer said.

Fellow surfers were able to recover the boy’s arm and help the teen to shore, where two emergency room doctors who happened to be walking by began to administer aid.

"Only until he actually was helped up on to shore did I notice his arm was gone," surfer Paul Snodgrass told KGW.

Photo courtesy of Paul Snodgrass

A surfer believed to be the one that lost his arm in the accident.

Snodgrass said he witnessed a dory boat run over two surfers, but the first surfer was not injured.

An Oregon Trooper happened to be in the area when the accident happened and he was able to carry the boy off the beach to a waiting ambulance.

The boy was taken to Tillamook County General Hospital and then air lifted to Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Portland.

Ortega is from Bend and known in the area as a top performer on the Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation snowboard team. An official with the High Cascade Snowboard Camp told KTVZ-TV in Bend the surgery seemed to go well.

KTVZ

Cole Ortega poses for a photo during a past snowboard competition.

Ortega an accomplished young athlete

"So far, it looks successful," Michele Schnake told KTVZ. "They are watching for signs of infection." He added that Ortega's fellow snowboarders were praying for him.

Ortega is an accomplished athlete, a champion in slopestyle snowboarding and other sports. The Bend Bulletin reported that he finished first overall in his age group in slopestyle at a national meet last winter at Copper Mountain, Colo.

"I was stunned," Hans Hibbard, Ortega's coach, told KTVZ-TV. "Cole's such an active and athletic kid. It's difficult to think of him being in this position without actually seeing it -- it's hard to imagine."

Dory operator stunned, upset

Darrel Martin, 55, of Beaver was operating the dory boat.  A witness who said he spoke with Martin on the beach told The Oregonian newspaper that Martin was in shock and expressed extreme remorse.

Paul Hanneman, chairman of the Doryman's Association, said that at the at the time of the accident, the swells were 10 to 15 feet high; in conditions like that, boaters often can't see surfers.

Dorymen normally try to blow their horns to warn the surfers of thir approach, Hanneman said. Some witnessess said the boater did sound his horn while others said he did not.

Due to high surf and many surfers and dory boats on the water, Tillamook County Deputies and State Troopers asked all surfers to leave the ocean so the dorys could come to shore. 

Friend of the family set up a Cole Ortega recovery fund. Donations can be made at any Bank of the Cascades.