The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

A 15-YEAR-OLD boy is feared drowned after disappearing beneath the waves while swimming in rough seas off Harbour Island on Sunday evening, with severe weather keeping searchers off the water and out of the air.

Jayden Ferguson was swimming with another teenage boy when the pair got into difficulties shortly before 7pm, police said. The waters were dangerously rough. The other boy made it back to shore, but Jayden has not been seen since.

The incident is believed to have happened at Pink Sands Beach, on the eastern side of Harbour Island near the Coral Sands Hotel.

Resident Eddie Major said Jayden’s mother was left traumatised. He said she sat at the edge of the road access to the beach, which the high tide had cut off.

“She just sat there, just staring at the ocean,” he said.

Asa Brown, who has been helping with the search, said the island is in shock. Speaking on Monday, he described the surviving teenager.

“When I arrived on the beach yesterday, he was, like, traumatised, like crying. He was hollering. He was screaming,” Mr Brown said.

He said the boy’s mother or guardian took him away from the beach to comfort him.

Police said a vessel initially launched a search, but the operation was suspended because of the severe weather. Officers and residents then searched the shoreline without success. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force and the Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association (BASRA) were notified.

Police, assisted by 35 residents, resumed shoreline searches shortly after 6.30am yesterday, but Jayden was not found. Unfavourable conditions continued to prevent searches at sea and from the air.

Mr Major said residents also searched rocky stretches of the coastline, walking along the rocks even as huge waves crashed against the shore.

“A lot of people got up between five in the morning to search both end of the beach, north and south,” he said. “But the weather was really, really bad. I mean, the ocean was raging. You couldn’t get on the beach basically. The water was like in the bushes.”

Mr Brown said more than 40 people had taken part in the wider search. Another search was expected to begin around 2pm yesterday, when the tide was lower.

He said police responded swiftly and the community had rallied together to help find the missing teenager.

Mr Brown said he hoped the continuing search would bring the family some closure. Reflecting on the boys, he said he understood how they could have underestimated the sea.

“I felt like, you know, they kids. They did not know the danger because when we was growing up, I used to come on the beach. Me and my friends, we used to do the same thing,” he said.

Severe weather also forced the temporary closure of the Glass Window Bridge and Queen’s Bath in North Eleuthera yesterday.