A 77-year-old woman drowned at Manhattan Beach on Monday night, police said, days after a teen drowned at nearby Coney Island Beach.
Parks Enforcement Patrol spotted Sheepshead Bay resident Liudmila Marchenko “in distress” on the shoreline at about 6:15 p.m. and told lifeguards, who pulled her from the water and started CPR, officials said. When first responders arrived on the scene, the woman was unconscious and unresponsive, per the NYPD. Marchenko was rushed to NYC Health+Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health, where she was pronounced dead.
An investigation is ongoing, and the city’s Chief Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death.
Marchenko was spotted about 15 minutes after lifeguards got off-duty at 6 p.m., though it was not immediately clear when she entered the water. Lifeguards are on-duty on New York City beaches from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and swimming is prohibited without a lifeguard.
Ongoing lifeguard shortages have in recent years forced the city to close sections of some city beaches to swimming, but the city expected to have more lifeguards this summer than last. Marchenko was at least the fourth person to drown at a New York City beach this summer, where six had drowned by the same time last summer, per Gothamist.
Theresa Scavo, chair of Brooklyn Community Board 15 – which includes Manhattan Beach — said she did not think there had been “any problem with lifeguards or a shortage at any of the beaches in this district.”
Several beachgoers in New Jersey also required rescue on the evening of Aug. 11 after they became caught in a rip current. It was not clear if similar conditions impacted Manhattan Beach, though the National Weather Service on Tuesday warned that rip current risk was “moderate,” and that life-threatening rip currents are possible in the area.
The incident came days after 18-year-old Gowanus resident Jun Obas drowned at Coney Island Beach.
Obas lived with epilepsy and autism, according to the Daily News, and was enjoying a rare beach day with his family on when he suffered a medical event in the water at about 3 p.m. on Aug. 6. Lifeguards pulled him from the surf and determined he did not have a pulse and was not breathing, according to parks department spokesperson, and performed CPR until an ambulance arrived to bring him to NYC Health+Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health, where he was pronounced dead.
