Two brothers from California were killed in a tragic boating accident just seven years after they narrowly survived a mass shooting.
Johnny Phommathep II, 17, his younger brother Jake, 14, and their father Johnny, 41, from Tehama County, are among the six victims of the deadly accident in the coastal town of Bodega Bay last weekend.
The tragedy comes almost exactly seven years after the brothers and their mother, Tiffany Phommathep, survived gunshot wounds during a mass shooting in Northern California.
‘It’s really hard because both my sons, Johnny Jr. and Jake, they survived the Rancho Tehama shooting,’ Tiffany told LA Times. ‘We survived that and for them to come to their end like this….’
Johnny, who is an avid fisherman, along with his two sons, were crab fishing on a 21-foot white Bayliner boat with three of their loved ones last Saturday when the vessel began taking on the rough waters, KTVU reported.
But Tiffany began to worry when she hadn’t heard from any of her family by sunset.
The crew was reported missing at around 10.20pm that same day after they failed to return to shore in Sonoma County north of San Francisco, USA Today reported.
‘The boat started taking on water so fast they didn’t even have time to radio for emergency service,’ Tiffany told LA Times.
‘They didn’t do anything besides making sure everybody had a life jacket – and everybody had a life jacket.’
The youngest onboard the boat, 11-year-old Juladi, a relative of the family, is the only one that has been confirmed alive after he was able to drift towards shore with the help of his life jacket and a buoyant cooler, LA Times reported.
Juladi said that the group was together in the water for a short time before separating.
He reached the safety of shore hours later in complete darkness and waited until there was daylight to find a nearby highway and alert for help.
The body of 17-year-old Johnny Jr. washed up on shore the very next morning, but the others haven’t yet been recovered and are presumed to be lost at sea.
‘The odds are not likely… but I would like to hold on to hope that maybe they reached shore somewhere,’ Tiffany said.
The boat also has not been located, but debris from the vessel were found near shore.
Tiffany identified the other two missing adults on board as 45-year-old Prasong Khammoungkhoune, her husband’s cousin and the owner of the boat, and 42-year-old Matthew Ong, a longtime friend.
Although the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said that they planned to continue the search each day, they said that the effort is now considered a recovery operation to bring the missing boaters’ bodies home, KTVU reported.
But the US Coast Guard suspended its search for the remaining four boaters after their 57 hour search, USA Today reported.
‘Our hope is always that it’s a search to bring someone home and not a recovery, but the ocean is in the low 50s… the swells are really big… and the winds have been really high,’ Deputy Rob Dillon, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, told LA Times.
‘Unfortunately the likelihood of someone surviving that kind of inclement weather for days on end is slim.’
During the last six weekends, Tiffany’s husband and their sons had gone on multiple fishing trips in either Bodega Bay or Monterey Bay and were considered experienced boaters who had been out in worse conditions before, KTVU reported.
But before the group headed out that fateful morning, the National Weather Service issued a small-craft advisory warning that the weekend could bring along dangerous conditions for small boats.
‘It has to be something wrong with the boat,’ Tiffany told the LA Times, noting that they weren’t that far from the shore.
Although Dillon noted how the exact cause into the accident hasn’t yet been determined – officials believe that the rough conditions played a large factor into the outcome.
Dillon said that there were eight to 10 foot swells and recorded wind gusts of over 15 mph.
‘That produces ocean conditions that are quite rough and difficult to navigate,’ he added.
Tiffany has been staying in the Bodega Bay area with hope that maybe her family will turn up.
But despite the community being there to support her during her stay – providing meals and hotel compensation – the mother can’t fathom her family’s misfortune.
In 2017, Johnny Jr., who was 10 at the time, and Jake, who was 6, were in their mother’s car heading to Rancho Tehama Reserve school when gunshots blasted through the window, LA Times reported.
Their neighbor, Kevin Janson Neal, went on a bloody rampage through their rural community, which lies about an hour south of Redding – killing five people and injuring 14 others before taking his own life.
Tiffany’s then 2-year-old son Niko was injured by flying shards of glass, USA Today reported.
She was also hit by five bullets while trying to protect her sons from the gunman.
Her husband, who is an US air force veteran, told Record Searchlight in 2017 that his wife was temporarily knocked unconscious before she was able to hold her wound and drive away – eventually flagging down a sheriff’s deputy for help, USA Today reported.
Tiffany told KTVU that her strength during this time comes from her husband, who she described as being an amazing husband.
‘He makes sure that his kids have everything that they needed to succeed in life,’ she told LA Times. ‘He’s such a great cook. We’re going to miss the food that he makes.’
Her teenage son, Johnny Jr., was set to be honored on Friday at his senior night football game and had plans to study at college to become a pharmacist.
‘He was such a good kid,’ she told LA Times. ‘He was such a helpful kid. He helped so much at home, so did JJ.’
The Phommathep boat was the first of two boats that capsized in Bodega Bay within 48 hours – leading to one of the two men on board dying shortly after his rescue.
A GoFundMe page was set up to support Tiffany during the unimaginable loss of her family.
‘I feel really bad. It shouldn’t be,’ she told KTVU. ‘It’s not how they should end.’