Beachgoer worries about fate of person in Gulf
Just before 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 16, Sarasota County Fire Department personnel were dispatched to Siesta Public Beach after a report came in that a person who had been swimming in the Gulf had disappeared, The Sarasota News Leader learned.
When firefighters/paramedics with Station 13 on Siesta Key arrived on the beach, the report says, they met with the caller, who told them that she had been watching a person swimming south in the Gulf from the northernmost swim line marker. “She did not see him exit the water,” the report continued, though she told the Station 13 crew that the person “did not appear to be in distress.”
(Station 13 stands immediately south of Siesta Public Beach.)
The report added, “We did a shoreline search … south of the public beach to Point of Rocks. Nothing was found.”
Firefighters/paramedics were able to borrow a vehicle kept on the beach for lifeguards’ use, the report indicated. Then, they headed south to Crescent Beach from the red lifeguard stand, the report said. Moreover, the crew of one of the Fire Department’s boats conducted “a near shore search for a possible swimmer.”
The first units arrived on the scene at 6:53 p.m. on Oct. 16, the report said; that was 2 minutes after the alarm went out.
Altogether, 14 members of the Fire Department responded to the call, the report noted, including those on the boat.
It was not until 7:32 p.m. that the final unit cleared the scene, the report added.
This is the third water rescue that Fire Department personnel have been called to on Siesta since the first half of September.
On Sept. 13, Paul Arthur Kerns of Sarasota died after attempting to rescue a woman who appeared to have become caught in a rip current in the vicinity of Midnight Pass and the Gulf, the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office reported. Witnesses told a Sheriff’s Office deputy that they thought Kerns had suffered a heart attack. However, the News Leader had not been able to obtain a copy of his autopsy report as of the deadline for publication of this issue. It can take several weeks for such reports to become available, given the variety of toxicology tests the District 12 Medical Examiner’s Office might pursue.
The second incident was reported off Beach Access 9 on Sept. 21. Witnesses said they saw John A. Miller, 46, of Sarasota, on a sandbar in the Gulf, offshore of the area of Access 9, when he began calling for help and then disappeared in the Gulf. A woman was able to pull him onshore, the Sheriff’s Office reported in that case. However, he did not survive.
One witness told a deputy that she had “observed the victim scream for help” and then begin “thrashing around in the water” before submerging in the Gulf.
The News Leader also has yet to be able to obtain a copy of Miller’s autopsy report.