8-year-old Missouri boy drowns while visiting Texas beach with family, officials say
A Missouri boy drowned while visiting a Texas beach with his family, officials say.
The 8-year-old was swimming off the beach Tuesday in Galveston when a rip current swept him away, the Galveston County Daily News reported.
His body was found Friday morning, the newspaper reported. The boy’s name hasn’t been released.
Galveston Island Beach Patrol Chief Peter Davis told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that a lifeguard spotted the boy floating in the water just before dark and couldn’t reach him before a rip current pulled him under.
“One of our lifeguards spotted the little boy’s body off the end of the groin and ran out, jumped off the rocks and tried to find him, couldn’t,” Davis told KHOU.
Rip currents are fast-moving channels of water flowing away from shore that often form near rock groins or jetties.
“He was the only one who had problems,” Davis told the Post-Dispatch. “They had a lot of smaller kids, too, and he was the only one who got stuck out there. None of them saw him. There were no witnesses.”
Rescuers searched for the boy but couldn’t find him until he washed ashore three days later about six miles from where he drowned, KTRK reported.
Galveston is about 50 miles southeast of Houston.
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