Riptide claims two lives at beach
Mass. men drown at Hampton Beach
HAMPTON, N.H. -- Two Massachusetts men drowned and a 10-year-old boy was taken to the hospital yesterday evening after a riptide pulled swimmers out to sea at Hampton Beach, according to hospital and emergency officials.
Authorities said as many as 12 people were swept out about 6 p.m. The Hampton Fire Department responded with a 34-foot boat and the Coast Guard dispatched two 25-foot boats and a helicopter.
After an hour and half, all the swimmers had been pulled from the water and three were taken to Exeter Hospital, said Coast Guard operations specialist Chad Mountcastle in Portland, Maine.
Carlos Reyes of Marlborough, 35, and Alex Tapia of Worcester were pulled from the water unconscious, according to the New Hampshire Marine Patrol. They were pronounced dead at the hospital, said spokesman Ron Goodspeed.
The Marine Patrol said the two men had entered the water in search of Reyes's 10-year-old son, Jose Casillas, who was in waist-deep water when he was caught in the riptide. The boy was treated at Exeter Hospital and released, Goodspeed said.
The riptide hit swimmers at the popular beach along Ocean Boulevard just as lifeguards had gone off duty, said police Lieutenant Richard Sawyer. Lifeguards returned to aid fire rescuers.
As many as 30,000 people crowded the 2-mile strip of white sand for the last day of the holiday weekend, and the beach was still crowded when the current began to pull swimmers out to sea, said a fire department dispatcher. The water temperatures hovered at about 60 degrees -- warm for the area -- and waves as high as 6-feet pounded the shore, driven by a strong sea breeze.
Chief lifeguard Jim Donahue said riptides have been especially severe this season because of strong storms in May. Strong spring storms churned water along the shore, shifting the sandbars on the beach, the fire department dispatcher said.
''We've never had beach conditions like that before," said lifeguard captain James DeLuca. ''They were swimming in a bad area after the lifeguards went off duty."
Vacationers and residents were surprised at the news of the deaths. Christopher Heald has worked in a candle store across from the beach for the past seven summers, but has never seen a riptide death there. Heald, who heard the sirens and watched ambulances and emergency personnel swarm the beach, said he has swam in a riptide himself and knows how dangerous they can be.
''You just swim and swim and swim and get nothing," he said.
The US Lifesaving Association estimates that more than 100 people die annually in the United States because of riptides. A riptide is a strong channeled current of water returning to sea from the shore.
The danger from riptides often occurs when swimmers become exhausted trying to swim back to shore against the current. Lifeguards say swimmers should swim parallel to shore because a rip current is usually narrow -- and swim back to shore only after they are out of the current.
Authorities said they couldn't remember another case of a riptide drowning at the beach.
Correspondent Benjamin Freed reported from Hampton and Exeter, N.H. Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. 