Search Continues for Teen Who Went Missing in the Ocean

By Katie McFadden

Memorial Day weekend is days away, but Rockaway had its first drowning incident of the season on Tuesday, May 19. The search is continuing for a teenager who went missing in the water on Beach 73rd Street.

At about 3:30 p.m., emergency services responded to a 911 call for a teen missing in the water. The missing is a boy from the Bronx, believed to be 18 years old. According to ABC, he and his friends, who came to enjoy the beach on the 90-degree day, entered the water and the boy started having trouble. Friends tried to pull him out but were unsuccessful as the boy slipped out of their hands, so they ran out of the water to call 911.

A massive response arrived at the scene including FDNY, NYPD, U.S. Coast Guard, scuba teams, aerial helicopter units, drones, marine units and off-duty lifeguards. Lifeguards are not officially on duty until Saturday, May 23, however, several were in shacks training or preparing the shacks for Saturday’s opening. The lifeguards ran to the scene and jumped into the roughly 55-degree water, quickly forming human chains to sweep the ground in search of the boy.

After about two hours of searching, the mass water search was called off. According to Councilwoman Selvena Brooks-Powers, who responded to the scene, she called and asked NYPD and FDNY to return to continue searching while there was still daylight. “We want to make sure that we do everything we can. This is an 18-year-old, he was a senior. We want to do everything we can to make sure that we’re taking advantage of the sunlight as opposed to waiting,” Brooks-Powers said in a social media video. “I’m very thankful for our emergency responders. Let us keep our prayers lifted that they’re able to find the young man.”

Limited personnel and helicopters continued the search into the night and suspended search operations at about 9 p.m. Earlier in the evening, emergency notification app, Citizen, in a story about the missing swimmer, had published that a body was recovered by a marine unit and was being transported, however, it turned out to be a misunderstanding regarding a different incident off of Long Island City. The search for the missing teen from Rockaway resumed on Wednesday morning.

Photos by Tim Moriarty.