After getting caught in a rip current while swimming at a Florida beach on Friday, three men drowned. This is the latest in a week of swimming deaths along the East Coast and in the South.
The three men were named by the Bay County Sheriff’s Office on Saturday as Harold Denzel Hunter, 24, Jemonda Ray, 25, and Marius Richardson, 24. All three are from Birmingham, Alabama.
The three people got to Bay County on Friday night with friends. Sheriff Tommy Ford said they “checked into their rental and rushed out to get into the water.” Around 8 p.m., the guys got caught in a rip current.
Ford said that on Friday night, his office got a call about three swimmers who were in trouble. He and the U.S. Coast Guard, Bay County Emergency Services, and other groups went to find them.
Ford said that the search and rescue effort went on for more than two hours. The guys were taken to the hospital after being pulled out of the Gulf of Mexico. Ford said on Saturday that all three men had died at nearby hospitals.
Ford said in a statement, “I have such a heavy heart this morning about the loss of three young visitors to our community.” “I saw so many people, including people who were just visiting, gather on the beach last night to desperately look for them.”
Once the people were found, the U.S. Coast Guard station in Panama City warned people to be careful in the Gulf waters, saying that “rip currents pop up unexpectedly and can happen on even the nicest days.”
The National Weather Service still said that Florida’s Gulf beaches had a high risk of rip currents on Saturday morning, citing “life-threatening rip currents” and 2-foot waves that are “dangerous for all levels of swimmers.”
People are more aware of beach safety now than they were before the event. On Thursday, a couple from Pennsylvania drowned at Stuart Beach on Florida’s Hutchinson Island after getting caught in a rip current. On Friday, two teens went missing at Queens’ Jacob Riis Park after being hit by a big wave.
The U.S. Coast Guard said on Saturday that it had stopped looking for the teens after searching more than 600 square miles of water between New Jersey and New York.
Jonathan Andrechik, commander of the Coast Guard’s New York sector, said, “The decision to stop a search is always hard and weighs heavily on everyone involved.” “Our crews and those of our partner agencies have done a full search.”
The National Weather Service says that at least 11 people have died because of rip currents as of June 9.
