VIRGINIA BEACH
A Maryland man drowned Saturday while body-boarding at the Oceanfront after a rip current pulled him offshore, police said.
The victim was Brodie Frederick III, 32, of Greenbelt, Md., said Officer Adam Bernstein of Virginia Beach police. Frederick and his family arrived Saturday morning and after checking into a hotel, went into the ocean near 10th Street with body boards, Bernstein said.
A rip current dragged several people farther into the water, including Frederick and his family. A police officer on boat patrol saw lifeguards rescuing people from the water and spotted Frederick about 100 yards offshore, Bernstein said.
The officer pulled him aboard the boat and performed CPR. Another officer performed CPR as Frederick was taken to a hospital, but he was pronounced dead about 1:30 p.m.
"This one seems to have been a very unexpected, swift-moving kind of a current and it caught people by surprise," said Bruce Nedelka, the division chief for Virginia Beach Emergency Medical Services. "It's really very tragic."
Rip currents are narrow, fast-moving channels of water that flow from the surf to deeper water. Sandbars break down after several days of large waves. Water funnels through them, creating the powerful currents.
Nedelka emphasized the proper response for those who get caught in a rip current: Swim parallel to the shore until out of the current. People who fight the current by swimming toward the beach can overexert and panic.
There was one drowning last summer at the Oceanfront. Derrick Rand, 19, a student at Granby High School in Norfolk, died Aug. 24 while swimming and body boarding.
On average, two swimmers drown annually at the Oceanfront.
Patrick Wilson, (757) 446-2957, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com
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If we place signs detailing
If we place signs detailing the dangers of the ocean, or anything else, everywhere we may approach danger, we will have nothing more than a landscape of signs.
It's the ocean. It's dangerous. We all have tv.
Tragic. You know how there
Tragic. You know how there are signs at most of the beach entrances at the boardwalk? Why not pop a sign up showing someone swimming parallel to the beach with a quick blurb about rip currents. Living at the beach all my life I am well aware of the process to get out of a rip but others may not be. At least this way they could be educated.