Coast Guard Identifies Missing Kayaker as Search Continues at Conimicut Point
WARWICK – At noon Monday a Coast Guard helicopter flying its search pattern for a missing 10-year-old girl swept off Conimicut Point a day earlier stopped and hovered in place just east of the point's exposed sandbar.
A spotter had detected a shadow in the turbid, shallow water below.
As eight search boats converged on the spot beneath the aircraft, three members of the Warwick Police Department's dive team ran in wetsuits down the long sandy spit jutting out into the Upper Bay and entered the water.
Among them was Jonathan Byrne, 31, one of the first responders Sunday afternoon when the first call came in about people caught in Conimicut Point's notorious currents and riptide.
Byrne had helped rescue one of three men who jumped in to save the girl — identified Monday as Yoskarly Martinez, of Providence. All three men also got caught in the strong incoming current.
One of the would-be rescuers, Valentin Cardona Sanchez, 35, of Central Falls, died in the process, said Warwick Mayor Frank Picozzi.
A Coast Guard crew, following tide and wind models, recovered Sanchez's body Sunday evening southeast of the Conimicut Point lighthouse. (Authorities initially gave his age as 30.)
Now on Monday, Byrne swam in water only about five feet deep looking for the missing girl.
But the water was so murky from the turbulence of the helicopter blades, the 13-knot wind and the collection of boats trying to maintain their positions that visibility was reduced to just a few feet.
The water between Conimicut Point and the lighthouse about a half-mile offshore is deceptively shallow. At extreme low tides, it's possible to walk out almost to the lighthouse. When the tide turns, water races back in over the sandbar. The current is so strong that divers sometimes tether themselves while working in the area.
As Byrne crawled along the bottom searching, back on shore the girl's mother and several relatives and friends sat at park tables and prayed.
At 12:43 p.m. Byrne said, he was in only about three feet of water when he saw colors emerging in front of him: yellow and blue; the colors of the clothing the young girl had been wearing Sunday when the current swept her away.
Byrne clung to her tightly — "I didn't want to lose her" — and signaled for the Warwick Fire Department boat to come and pick them up.
At an afternoon news conference, police Capt. Robert Hart said the young girl's body may have been pulled far and deep underwater by the currents on Sunday before returning to the shallows by Conimicut Point.
The recovery brought to an end a search that began Sunday afternoon and that by Monday morning had stretched north into the Providence River, east along the shores of Barrington and Bristol and as far south as Prudence Island.
'A dangerous place with the current'
Dean Hoxsie, the chief of enforcement for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, described Conimicut Point as a "dangerous place with the current. ... It's not every year, maybe every other year, that somebody gets in trouble."
In January 2018, a Warwick man who launched his kayak off Conimicut Point died. His body was recovered two months later off Barrington.
At about 3 p.m. Sunday, Yosekarly Martinez was walking along the sandbar with an uncle and another man when she stepped into the water, said Hart.
The men saw her struggling and jumped in to save her, said Hart, but soon they, too, were caught in the strong incoming current. (Both men were taken to Kent Hospital. One was on a breathing tube Sunday and was in serious condition Monday. Sanchez had jumped in after the two men, said Hart.
Multiple agencies joined the Warwick police and fire departments in the search, including the Coast Guard, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and the Portsmouth Police Department, Warwick Police Maj. Andrew Sullivan said.
At Monday's news conference, Mayor Picozzi said police and fire officials will review potential changes in signs and policies at Conimicut Point Park in the coming days.
More:Reports: Body of 30-year-old man pulled from water off Warwick; search continues for child
With staff reports from Mark Reynolds
Source: https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/local/2021/06/21/search-continues-girl-11-missing-water-off-warwick/7768590002/
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