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GALVESTON — A man who drowned Sunday in a rip current off a Galveston pier has yet to be identified, prompting an appeal to the public to learn the man’s name, authorities said Monday.

The man, possibly Hispanic and in his 20s, stood 6 feet tall and weighed 180 pounds. He had short, black hair with gray sides and many distinguishing tattoos, John Florence, a spokesman with the Galveston County Medical Examiner’s Office, said.

“One was a dragon-type tattoo on his back, and he had the Virgin Mary on his left shoulder,” Florence said. “There was the letter A in Old English on his left hand, plus he had numerous tattoos on his legs and arms and the word ‘Aziel.’”

The man, who had been on a Boogie Board, was found at the end of the 29th Street pier and pronounced dead at 5:12 p.m. The cause of his death was ruled drowning, pending a toxicology exam, Florence said.

The man had the board’s leash wrapped around his wrist, rather than using an easily removable Velcro strip, Galveston Island Beach Patrol Chief Peter Davis said.

“It was tied around his wrist five times, and was a major contributor to him drowning,” Davis said. “When the board became wedged between the rocks and with the current pulling him sideways, he was unable to stay afloat.”

The longshore current, estimated at 10 mph, created strong rip currents around the piers, hampering recovery efforts that lasted about 50 minutes, Davis said.

“The current was too strong for even our good swimmers to maintain for very long with fins,” Davis said.

Two lifeguards, who suffered lacerations when they were slammed into the rock pier, returned to work Monday, Davis said.

If no one comes forward with the man’s name, the medical examiner would attempt to identify him with fingerprints, Florence said.

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A St. Charles man who drowned Saturday in Lake Michigan while leading several young relatives to safety is being remembered as a kind man who enjoyed life and was quick to organize benefits to help the families of several friends who had died prematurely.

Martin Jordan, 45, vacationed every summer in South Haven, Mich., with his wife, Maureen, and three children, said his sister-in-law, Kathy Davila. Jordan had been in Michigan for two days when he and five young family members became caught early Saturday evening in strong rip currents while swimming near a pier.

“The wind changed and picked up and the water became violently rough,” Davila said. “He immediately started pushing the kids to the ladder of the pier. His niece said she could feel his hand by her back, pushing her. The last thing he said before he died was, ‘Swim for your life.’ “

Jordan did not survive, despite resuscitation efforts.

“I don’t know whether it was a loss of energy, panic, the force of the water and the waves or just probably exhaustion,” Davila said.

South Haven police are investigating but noted that paramedics had responded to two earlier cases on Saturday of swimmers in rough water. South Haven police now are asking beachgoers to stay out of Lake Michigan when there are high waves and heavy rip currents.

Born and raised in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, Martin Jordan graduated from St. Patrick’s High School and Illinois State University, and spent his entire 25-year  career working in group homes with teens, said his brother, Dan.

He also helped plan benefits for friends who needed assistance, including for relatives of friends who had died young, Davila said.

“Now his friends are thinking of doing the same thing for his wife and his three kids,” she said.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Police say a teenage swimmer has died after struggling in the Atlantic Ocean off Queens.

Police say lifeguards pulled Daniel O’Neil out of the water around 3 p.m. Saturday near Beach 25 Street in the Rockaways. The lifeguards tried to revive the 19-year-old, but he was pronounced dead soon after being taken to a hospital.

It wasn’t immediately clear what swimming conditions were like in the area when O’Neil began having trouble. Lifeguards on nearby Long Island have reported rescuing an unusually high number of swimmers from rip currents in the last 10 days.

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As parents watched a handful of young baseball players from a Glen Burnie team enjoy the surf Thursday near Myrtle Beach, S.C., the unthinkable happened.

Two boys were whisked away by a rip current, vanishing beneath the water. Quick thinking teammates rescued one, but the other, a 13-year-old from Baltimore County, apparently drowned.

Horry County Police were still searching late yesterday for the body of Lonnie Hill of Woodlawn, who was on the beach at about 12:40 p.m. with other members of Greater Glen Burnie Patriots when he was pulled under.

“My daughter was out there and she said he was right next to her one minute and gone the next,” said a parent who was on the beach and asked not to be identified.

“It’s devastating I feel so sorry for Lonnie. I just (imagine) him … struggling and nobody seeing him.”

Parents accompanying the team said they were watching when five teenagers, four of them players, got into trouble in the surf.

Police said the water at the Garden City Beach where Lonnie drowned has been choppy recently, and the current gets stronger at the point where the water is chest depth. Just beyond that is a precipitous drop.

That’s the spot where Lonnie and an unidentified boy were taken by the rip current.

Teammates saved one, but it happened so quickly they couldn’t grab Lonnie, the parent who saw the tragedy said.

“I stepped out over the ledge and it just pulled me out pretty quick, I could barely get back, It was really scary,” he said. “You let them go out there and you think you’re safe because you are there. But you know, we aren’t familiar with the rip tides. We don’t have those like that in Ocean City.”

Sgt. Robert Kegler, Horry County police spokesman, said his officers were still looking yesterday for the boy’s body.

“There has not been a recovery yet,” Kegler said. “We are going to continue to have 24-hour coverage of that area, concentrating on the area where he went missing.” The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources flew an airplane over the area during the weekend. Georgetown County officials assisted with boats Monday and Horry County took over that responsibility yesterday.

“We are going to continue our efforts,” Kegler said. “The water has been very choppy, even at the shore. We’ve had several rescues in the past few days due to the water conditions and rip currents.”

Lonnie traveled to South Carolina with his grandparents, Andrea and John Darden. Neither the Dardens nor the boy’s parents could be reached for comment.

Lonnie pitched the night before in the Big Kahuna Tournament for players 13 and under at The Ripken Experience in Myrtle Beach. Players pay as much as $695 to play in a minimum of six games at fields that imitate former Major League stadiums like the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field.

Patriots Head Coach Tom McCormick said Lonnie’s father contacted them about getting the teenager on the team.

“He was a very quiet, nice kid,” McCormick said. “We never had any problems, he was just a great kid, he loved baseball. I think he’d play 24/7 if he could.”

The Patriots are one of many teams from Greater Glen Burnie Junior Sports League. The group runs leagues for baseball, softball, boys and girls soccer and boys and girls basketball

McCormick said he will try to retire Lonnie’s number 21, for all Greater Glen Burnie ports.

“He will not be forgotten that’s for sure,” McCormick said. “Everybody’s thoughts and prayers go out to the family and everyone is devastated.”

Lonnie and his teammates were on the beach Thursday to eat lunch and have fun in the water, according to the parent who saw the drowning. He said he had warned the kids about going out too far.

He heard the teenagers calling but figured they just needed someone to retrieve a football they were playing with because it had gone out too far. But he headed out to see what was going on.

“I’m halfway out there and I didn’t even know what was going on,” the parent said. “I just hear, ‘Lonnie! Lonnie!’ and my heart sunk and I’m like, ‘Oh no.’”

The parent didn’t know the boy extremely well but knew him enough to like him.

“He was great kid, he really was,” the parent said. “This is tragic.”

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A Granger man who drowned over the weekend in Lake Michigan was the first drowning victim at a Michigan state park along the lake in three years.

Police say 57-year-old Kale Heinz Becker had been swimming with his wife at Warren Dunes State Park Sunday in Bridgman. At one point, Becker’s wife turned around and he was gone.

Becker’s body was found a short time later, about 30 yards from shore.

Authorities said Sunday was a risky day to be swimming in Lake Michigan, as red flags were flying to warn of a strong undertow and rip currents. Police think that may have caused Becker’s death.

Mary Dettloff, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, said there have been no lifeguards at state parks in Michigan for more than 10 years. She said studies have proved that lifeguards give people a “false sense of security,” which leads to riskier behavior.

Dettloff said it is not against the law to go in water when the red flags are up, but she added there’s increased danger.

“That means there’s rip tides present and other unsafe conditions — high waves, things like that,” Dettloff said.

There are 17 state parks along Lake Michigan’s east coast. Sunday’s drowning was the first since 2006, when three occurred, including one at Warren Dunes.

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HATTERAS VILLAGE, N.C. — A Springboro man has died while saving his children from a rip current off the North Carolina coast.

Robert Cook, 43, was pronounced dead after he was found in the water about 75 feet from shore just after 5 p.m. Saturday.

Cook was with his children and a friend finishing a vacation at the north end of Hatteras Village, Cyndy Holda, a spokeswoman for Cape Hatteras National Seashore, told the Virginian News-Pilot.

Cook’s children and his friend’s child were having trouble swimming, so Cook and his friend were bringing them in to the beach, she said.

When they went back for the last child, Cook became tired and couldn’t make it back to the shore, Holda said.

Rescue crews found Cook a short time later while conducting a grid search of the water, but could not resuscitate him.

Officials said red flags were posted at the time due to rough water conditions.

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After suspending the search for a missing 13 year old swimmer, authorities plan to resume the search in Garden City at first light, around 5:30 am, Friday morning.

The 13-year-old Maryland boy disappeared around 12:30 Thursday afternoon while swimming in the ocean, in between 15th and 16th Avenue South in Garden City.

Authorities say it is now considered a recovery mission instead of a rescue mission.

Dozens of first responders spent the entire day searching the area with hundreds of people looking on, even helping.

Authorities were in the water — rafts, boats, jet skis, and in the air with helicopters. On lookers even joined the search, as about 100 people locked arm in arm and combed the shore, searching for the missing teen.

“It’s always difficult when it comes to any child. It’s a lot harder to swallow, a lot harder to take,” said Sgt. Robert Kegler, with Horry County Police.

Authorities say the boy was swimming with seven other friends in the ocean when someone noticed several of the boys were struggling in the water.

That’s when a lifeguard jumped in to help bring the boys to shore, but one was left behind in what were rough waters all day long.

“The most challenging has been the physical conditions, the weather itself. You can feel the strong winds out here, the currents a lot higher. The waves are a lot stronger than it normally is. It’s made it very difficult,” said Kegler.

Those who were in the water noticed.

“Very tiring, because you have to keep fighting your way back, it’s exhausting,” recalled George Denton, of Surfside Beach.

“As you can see it’s windy and the current is pulling really bad towards the north,” said Randy Johnson, of Garden City.

“The currents are really bad. They’re pulling you down the beach, and they’re also pulling you out. The waves are pretty busy. One comes right after another. It’s hard to time them like normal surf, so all those combined together, it can drag you out of here. If you’re not careful out there, it’s bad,” said Denton.

Bad, even for really good swimmers

“A majority of swimmers who are really good still can only swim two to three miles per hour, a rip (current) can go as fast as six miles per hour, but we recommend they get on their back and let the rip (current) carry them out to the head of the rip (current) or try to swim parallel to the beach, but don’t try to swim towards the beach,” said Duke Brown, with Horry County Beach Patrol.

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PAWLEYS ISLAND, SC (WMBF) – A family continues to mourn the loss of a Myrtle Beach man who died while trying to rescue his son in Pawleys Island Thursday afternoon.

Robert Beebe, spokesman for Midway Fire Rescue says the father was fishing in the surf when his son was hit by a wave and pulled under water. The man went in after his son and saved him, but was pulled back under the water.

The man, identified as Salomon Sifontes by Georgetown County Coroner Kenny Johnosn, was able to save his son, but in the end, lost his own life.

The reality of what happened on Thursday still hasn’t hit 7-year-old Darwin, who says he remembers seeing his father in those final moments.

“My dad tried to help me, and we were like going really far away, and he couldn’t breathe anymore and he drowned and he was floating with his mouth in the water,” he recalled.

Sifontes’s brother, Moises Sifontes, says he couldn’t believe the news when he first heard.

“They were together all the time. When he sees the picture, he starts crying, and says ‘I want my daddy,’” explained Moises.

Moises says his brother did the right thing by saving his son.

“We are hurt, but we are glad [Darwin] is alive,” said Moises.

The Sifontes family says they would like to send Salomon’s body back to his home country of Honduras, but so far, do not have enough money to do so.

The father, rescuers estimate, was underwater for 30 minutes before he was brought ashore.

An autopsy Friday confirmed Sifontes died as a result of drowning.

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Carolina Beach | A man who lifeguards pulled from a rip current at Carolina Beach late last month died at an area hospital this week, according to his family.

David Weaver, 41, of Leland was brought to shore June 27. Though he wasn’t breathing, he was revived on the way to New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, officials have said.

But family members say Weaver remained on life support after the rescue attempt.

On Wednesday, the family took him off life-support to see if he would survive, said Debbie Ward, Weaver’s sister-in-law. He died soon after.

The death is the third drowning to occur this season at New Hanover County beaches, and the second at Carolina Beach.

Earlier this summer, authorities said high winds had cut deep troughs in the sand just off shore at the area’s east-facing beaches.

Those areas between the shore and sandbars are conducive to the formation of rip currents, officials have said.

Weaver’s emergency and the prior drowning at Carolina Beach this year occurred near the Hamlet beach access, officials said. In May, a 19-year-old man from Fayetteville disappeared in the water there. His body was found days later. Then in June, a woman from Ohio drowned at Kure Beach after she was pulled from a rip current.

The emergency

Weaver’s emergency occurred around 7 p.m. on a Saturday, while the beach was crowded with swimmers, according to Weaver’s wife Sandy.

Authorities said lifeguards had recently finished their shift but were still in the area. Sandy said the family did not see any flags indicating the surf conditions, and said the flags, which could serve as a warning, should remain even after lifeguards leave.

Sandy says Weaver went into the water to help his 13-year-old daughter Amanda, and Kesha Davis, a 27-year-old family friend, who was swimming with her. Both were caught in a rip current. But Weaver never made it to them, Sandy said. Instead the current took him in a different direction.

Davis said trouble began when she and Amanda were in waist-deep water. “We were not far out,” she said. “One minute we could touch the bottom of the ocean, the next minute we couldn’t.”

Davis and Amanda eventually made it back toward the beach, where Sandy helped them ashore. Lifeguards brought Weaver to shore, started CPR and handed him off to EMS workers who took him to the hospital.

Ward, Weaver’s sister-in-law, remembered Weaver as fun and friendly. After a burn-injury, which family members say he sustained while painting streets, Weaver passed his time as a stay-at-home dad.

Sandy said he lived for their three children – Michael, Megan and Amanda – who are between the ages of 11 and 13.

His funeral is scheduled for 2 p.m. Monday at Andrews Mortuary, with burial to follow at Greenlawn Memorial Park Cemetery.

Authorities have said anyone caught in a rip current shouldn’t fight it. Instead, swim parallel to the shore until you can get out of the current. Swimmers should swim near lifeguards, officials say, and signal to them if they get in trouble.

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VIRGINIA BEACH – A 33-year-old woman drowned on the oceanfront Friday night after being caught in a rip current, according to police.

Sujana Unesh, of Ashburn, was swimming with her family when a rip current pulled her and other family members further into the water, according to police.

Lifeguards and citizens tried to rescue her but initially lost sight of her in the water, according to police.

Unesh’s body was recovered later Friday night.

A few months ago, a Maryland man drowned on the oceanfront after a rip current pulled him under.