Northport, WA superintendent dies attempting to save student lost in ocean
Jun 3, 2025, 6:16 PM | Updated: 6:23 pm
Waves at Long Beach, WA. (Photo: Mike Murry via Flickr Creative Commons)
(Photo: Mike Murry via Flickr Creative Commons)
A Northport High School (NHS) baseball player went missing while swimming off the shore of Long Beach on May 24.
Coach and Northport School District (NSD) Superintendent Don Baribault attempted to save the student, but was not able to. Baribault later died from hypothermia in a Portland hospital on May 26.
Northport student swept away in ocean
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Noah Heberling, 15, was on a baseball trip for the state playoffs, and the team was on the way to pick up pizzas that the team had ordered. The team decided to take a detour and visit the Washington coast, where Heberling got swept away by large waves, according to The Spokesman-Review.
Erik Stark, the NHS athletic director, was not at the scene but detailed the events that occurred.
“He kind of got tossed around. A couple of the other kids went out to get him,” Stark said, according to The Spokesman-Review.
Two of the baseball team’s coaches, including Baribault, along with Heberling’s father, went into the water to save Heberling.
“Don went out, and I think he made contact with Noah. But both of them had succumbed to hypothermia and weren’t functioning,” Stark said, according to The Spokesman-Review.
The U.S. Coast Guard crew members reported to the scene around 8 p.m., according to The Seattle Times.
The Coast Guard was able to pull Baribault and his father to shore, but Heberling’s body has yet to be found, according to The Spokesman-Review.
Superintendent Don Baribault dies in hospital
The Northport Mustangs Athletics Facebook account confirmed the passing of Baribault in a post on Facebook.
“Don was struggling on the beach. They took him to the hospital. Then he was flown to a Portland hospital, that’s where he succumbed,” Stark said, according to The Spokesman-Review.
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