A search for a man presumed drowned in the ocean near the Windward Shores resort on Napeague on Tuesday was suspended on Wednesday afternoon.
According to East Hampton Town police, a 23-year-old man from Brooklyn, identified yesterday as Byron Dong Ha Kim, had been swimming with friends in front of the resort when he and another man got into trouble.
"Witnesses report that two men appeared to be struggling while swimming in the surf before being pulled under," town police said in a press release. One of them was taken from the water "before regaining consciousness" and transported to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, police said. Details about his condition were not known.
Divers, East Hampton Town Ocean Rescue, police, Marine Patrol, a county police helicopter crew, and the Coast Guard searched for the missing victim until dark Tuesday. Ocean Rescue and Marine Patrol were among the agencies that returned the following day to scour the area amid concerns about possible thunderstorms.
An initial 911 call for help had come in just before 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday. First responders from the Amagansett and Montauk Fire Departments were on the scene quickly.
The missing swimmer was described by police initially as a 5-foot-5-inch male with long black hair who had "multiple tattoos" and was wearing fluorescent-colored swim trunks. (See note)
At about 1 p.m., a Coast Guard aircraft was at the scene and a Suffolk County Police helicopter arrived to join the search.
Seas were about three feet with the wind from the southwest at midday on Tuesday. At ocean beaches in East Hampton lifeguards displayed yellow flags by midday, indicating the possibility of rip currents and unsafe conditions for inexperienced swimmers.
Chief Bob Pucci of East Hampton Volunteer Ocean Rescue said that searchers were sent out from where the missing man had last been seen on Tuesday. Teams of 10 rescue swimmers in masks, snorkels, and fins lined up at six-foot intervals perpendicular to the shore moving slowly in the direction the victim's body would have drifted. The teams did five 100-yard sweeps on Tuesday and more the following day, he said.
"If there is one thing I would like to say, it would be swim near a lifeguard," Mr. Pucci said. "I feel terrible."
Though conditions had not been overly dangerous on Tuesday, the victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time, he said. "It was very deep in the rip," he said, noting that he had observed a gap in the sandbar near the shore in which the water was neck deep.
"It was choppy. The wind was southwest about 10 or 15 knots. There were not big waves, but it wasn't easy," he said.
Ocean rescue was put on standby around 11:30 Wednesday morning, as Marine Patrol and police divers continued the search. "East Hampton Town Marine Patrol will be deployed in the area to continue shoreline searches utilizing four-wheel-drive and all-terrain vehicles for the immediate future," police said in a presss release sent late in the afternoon on Wednesday.
About 66 volunteers make up the Ocean Rescue squad, which trains two evenings a week during the summer at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett, generally, and has been in existence since 2003. By coincidence, their two most recent training sessions had been on line searches of the sort called in on Tuesday.
The program starts with lifeguard certification then proceeds through a range of steps based on Coast Guard and Navy rescue methods. A separate annual training prepares members for the use of the group's Kawasaki personal watercraft.
Ocean Rescue took part in a search for another New York City man, Jeffrey Gantt, who drowned in Fort Pond Montauk while boating with friends on July 22.
A bill that would bring the squad into the ranks of state-sanctioned emergency agencies has been approved by the New York State Legislature but has not been signed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. If signed, the law would allow ocean rescue members to display green flashing lights on their vehicles when responding to an emergency.
Note: A police description of Mr. Kim was corrected by several of his friends. They said that he was Korean, 5-feet-6 inches tall, with long, black hair, and covered with tattoos, including a "sleeve" on his left arm.
