A beach out­ing at Clifton Hill turned trag­ic af­ter teenag­er Em­manuel Williams drowned while try­ing to save a friend in dis­tress.

Po­lice said Williams, 18, of Cochrane Vil­lage, Guapo, had gone to the beach on Fri­day with friends aged 17, 18, and 23. The youngest of the group told po­lice that around 1.25 pm, they were div­ing off rocks at the beach when he got in­to dif­fi­cul­ty in the wa­ter.

Williams, his two friends, and oth­er beach­go­ers came to his aid and man­aged to pull him out. How­ev­er, Williams did not resur­face. With as­sis­tance from a free­lance div­er, his body was found around 5.30 pm near some rocks about 20 feet in­to the sea. He was brought to shore but re­mained un­re­spon­sive.

He was tak­en to the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal, where at­tempts by med­ical staff to re­sus­ci­tate him were un­suc­cess­ful. Williams was pro­nounced dead around 6.45 pm. Two oth­er friends were treat­ed at the hos­pi­tal; one was dis­charged, while the oth­er was trans­ferred to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for fur­ther care. —SW