The Department of Public Safety yesterday said the man who died on the waters off Sugar Dock Tuesday had drowned, ruling out foul play in the incident.<\/p>\n
Police Capt. Pete C. Muna, the acting DPS spokesman, identified the victim as Steve Murray, a 43-year-old Caucasian.<\/p>\n
Initial investigation showed that Murray and his son had been snorkeling Tuesday afternoon when the incident occurred. He is the fifth person to drown on Sugar Dock\u2019s waters this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they [Murray and son] found that they have gone out too far, they decided to turn around but the waves kept pulling and [slamming] them against the rock[s],\u201d Muna said. \u201cAfter a while, the boy was holding on to his father and calling for help.\u201d<\/p>\n
The boy, who is around 10 years old, survived the incident. Fishermen spotted what appeared to them as a floating object, which turned out to be Murray\u2019s body when they came close to it.<\/p>\n
Muna said boat operator Antonio Maestro and Dominador Labutap helped the boy and brought the child and his father\u2019s body ashore. Murray\u2019s father, a physician, responded to the scene.<\/p>\n
Medics brought Murray to the Commonwealth Health Center, where he was officially pronounced dead due to drowning.<\/p>\n
The incident prompted DPS commissioner Edward Camacho to respond to the scene along with policemen and crime scene investigators.<\/p>\n
Camacho said the occurrence of several drowning incidents at the Sugar Dock should be a concern, saying that preventive measures should be looked at for implementation, including the possible closure of the beach site for recreational purposes.<\/p>\n
He also said the beach closure could be temporary, when authorities determine that conditions are hazardous. <\/p>\n
Camacho also said he would like to detail lifeguards at the Sugar Dock. He said he would like the DPS\u2019 Boating Safety to have a facility at the site, so that its personnel could quickly respond to distress happening at sea. At this time, however, the DPS is facing financial and manpower problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Department of Public Safety yesterday said the man who died on the waters off Sugar Dock Tuesday had drowned, ruling out foul play in the incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}