THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 28, 1996 TAG: 9606280599
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY JENNIFER MCMENAMIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUCK LENGTH: 38 lines
A 14-year-old Baltimore boy is believed drowned after he was pulled out to sea by a flash rip current on an unguarded beach.
Bob Gabriel, president of Lifeguard Beach Services, said the unidentified youth, vacationing with a large group of foster-home boys and girls from Baltimore, was standing in waist-high water with the group's supervisor and another adult. The current raised the water level suddenly and the adults couldn't hold onto the boy, who did not know how to swim, Gabriel said.
Lifeguard Beach Services will continue to patrol the beach for the boy's body, which had not been found by Thursday evening. ``We've been searching the ocean and going up and down the beach,'' Gabriel said. ``There's nothing more we can do. Just wait.''
Flash rip currents - where the tide suddenly appears and disappears - are often the culprit of such accidents, Gabriel said.
``It's the classic case,'' he said. ``People say they were in waist-high water and then they feel like they're being pulled out - not under, but out.''
Rip currents are created when tides and winds change and usually occur near sandbars.
There is little swimmers can do to avoid rip currents, Gabriel said, aside from swimming only on lifeguarded beaches.
``I can't imagine why a group would go swimming in any area other than a guarded beach,'' he said.
The nearest lifeguard to Wednesday's accident - which occurred near Canvas Beach Road - was about a half mile away, Gabriel estimated.
This is the first Outer Banks drowning this season. ``It's a very unusual situation,'' Gabriel said. ``This is the type of thing that only happens to inexperienced swimmers.
``We put up posters and there are all kinds of materials out there that people can read. It's just an unfortunate thing.''
KEYWORDS: DROWNING by CNB