St. Croix resident Ellen Nettles, 19, drowned Thursday, when she was swept out to sea from the tide pools at Annaly Bay, near Hamm’s Bluff, where she was swimming.
According to police, the victim was swimming with a group of friends, and the water began to get rough. One of the friends apparently asked the victim if she wanted to get out of the water, and when Nettles attempted to do so, she was pulled under by the current.
Nettles body surfaced about five minutes later, approximately 30 feet away from where she was last seen, according to the initial police report.
According to Decaturpatch.com, an online newspaper in Decatur, Ga., Nettles attended Decatur High School but graduated in 2011 from another high school in Savannah. Apparently, she was on a “gap year,” taking a year off after high school and before starting college, and had come to St. Croix . The newspaper also mentioned that Nettles had lost her mother, Barbara Gaby Nettles, to cancer in 2009.
Officers from the V.I. Police Department Marine Unit recovered the victim in the water, and she was transported by boat to the Frederiksted pier. Nettles was taken by ambulance to the Gov. Juan F. Luis Hospital and Medical Center where she was pronounced dead by medical staff.
