WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES

PACIFIC CITY, Ore. - Images of the moments in the water when a 14-year-old lost his arm in a surfing accident tell quite a story.

Cole Ortega's arm was severed when he was struck by a dory boat over the weekend off Cape Kiwanda Beach in Pacific City.

Surgeons were able to reattach his arm and blood is flowing to the limb, according to Hans Hibbard, the boy's snowboarding coach, who talked to KOHD-TV in Bend. Ortega (pictured below) is in serious condition at a Portland hospital where he is being closely monitored.

Meanwhile, Paul Snodgrass, an avid surfer himself, is reliving what happened.

On Sunday, less than perfect conditions at Pacific City had him sitting out and snapping photos instead - photos that captured the moments when Ortega and a dory boat collided.

"I saw the panic in the surfers and I reached for my phone because I knew as soon as it went over them that the boy was in trouble," Snodgrass said.

Snodgrass didn't know then that the boat had severed Ortega's arm, and that his fellow surfers brought that arm with them as they fought the waves to get the teen back to shore.

Now that he does know, Snodgrass is angered by the initial reaction from those in the boat, which he captured in the photo below.

It is common for the boats to sound a horn but it is unclear if that happened in this case.

But others who witnessed the accident said it resulted from a series of unfortunate circumstances in a spot with increasingly heavy ocean traffic. 

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."

Dory boat driver Darrell Martin, 55, of Beaver could not be reached for comment, but a witness who said he spoke with Martin on the beach told The Oregonian newspaper that Martin was in shock and expressed extreme remorse.

Frank Lippy, a Kaiser Permanente emergency room doctor and a surfer, was at the beach and treated Ortega. He told the paper that Ortega's wetsuit helped preserve the limb, which was wrapped in sterile gauze, put in plastic bag and then placed on ice.

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.

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.

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

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," said his coach, Hibbard. "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."

- The Associated Press contributed to this report