Two 13-year-old boys drowned Friday after slipping into Jamaica Bay from a sandbar, police said. As summer approaches and more people are dragged into the water, the deaths are a reminder of the danger posed by the gulf’s strong currents and steep falls.
The boys were on the sand at around 11:30 a.m. when they entered the water near Kenh Bac Bridge in Queens, police said. When they failed to reappear, someone called 911 and the rescue effort began, police said.
After a search involving divers and helicopters by police and Fire Department emergency personnel, both teenagers were pulled from the water and taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. , where they are presumed dead, police said. Their names have not been released pending their family’s announcement.
The drowned boys area is located in the Gateway National Recreation Area, a large federal park that extends from Sandy Hook in New Jersey to Jamaica Bay and Staten Island in New York.
A spokesman for the park, Daphne Yun, said the boys were swimming near the bridge’s parking lot in “an unprotected, lifeguard-free area” when they went under. “Visitors are only reminded to swim when lifeguards are present,” she added.
Signs in the area, noting strong currents and sudden drops, indicate that wading and swimming are prohibited and that the conditions there contributed to the drowning.
In August 2019, 15-year-old Odozi drowned after going swimming with friends in a part of the bay reserved for kayaks and canoes. He is one of Seven people drown in waters near the Rockaway Peninsula over a three-month period. Four, including Sustain, are teenagers.
In July 2000, an 11 year old boy drowned after he and another boy jumped into an area of the bay where swimming is not allowed. In August 1963, a woman and a 10-year-old boy drowned while swimming in different areas of the bay. And later that year, a swimmer and a man trying to save him drowned in the Little Egg Swamp area of the bay.
Dropping out of school can be especially dangerous. In July 1973, two sisters aged 11 and 13 drowned near the southern portion of Broad Channel Island after wading into shallow, low-tide water and stepping off the underwater shelf to what police said was 30 feet of water.
