Search­es con­tin­ued yes­ter­day for 17-year-old Gabriel Nel­son, who is be­lieved to have drowned in Ma­yaro on Sun­day. The Form Five stu­dent of St Stephen’s Col­lege was pulled un­der by a rip cur­rent while bathing at Grand La­goon.

Rel­a­tives said that around 4 pm, Nel­son, his 13-year-old broth­er, and their 20-year-old cousin, Nicholas Sinanan, ran in­to trou­ble while swim­ming. The two oth­er boys made it safe­ly to shore, but Gabriel was pulled un­der the wa­ter.

Gabriel, of George Vil­lage, Table­land, had left home around mid­day with his moth­er, step­fa­ther, broth­er, and cousin. The fam­i­ly ar­rived at the beach around 2 pm, and the boys were swim­ming about 50 feet from shore. About an hour lat­er, while the moth­er sat on the sand, her younger son told her they had been in chest-high wa­ter when Gabriel dis­ap­peared un­der­wa­ter.

Po­lice re­quest­ed as­sis­tance from the Coast Guard base at Ga­le­o­ta Point but were re­port­ed­ly told that their ve­hi­cle had me­chan­i­cal prob­lems and no ves­sel was avail­able. When con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia, Coast Guard Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Of­fi­cer Khadi­ja Lamy said she could nei­ther con­firm the al­leged lack of re­sources nor whether the Coast Guard had par­tic­i­pat­ed in the search. She added that a state­ment would be is­sued at the ap­pro­pri­ate time, with­out spec­i­fy­ing when.

Mean­while, Ma­yaro/Guayagua­yare Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ray­mond Co­zi­er and Ma­yaro South/Guayagua­yare coun­cil­lor Delav­erne Loui­son pro­vid­ed the fam­i­ly, who slept at the beach overnight, with a tent, blan­kets, and food. Mem­bers of the Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team, lo­cal vil­lagers, and fish­er­folk are as­sist­ing in the on­go­ing search.