The body of a young girl swept away by a strong riptide into the Pacific Ocean in Washington state has been recovered.
A group of four people found the 11-year-old’s body floating in and out of the surf on Saturday at 9:30 a.m., Long Beach Police Chief Flint Wright told the Daily News.
Officers pulled Lindsey Mustread’s body to shore after waiting for the tides to bring her back.
The Chimacum, Wash., girl was presumed drowned after the cold waves swallowed Mustread and her little brother, Kenneth, 9, as the pair waded the surf during a family vacation to Bolstad Beach.
She felt the water tugging her away and told Kenneth to swim to safety, but the tide sucked him under as well. Pacific County rescue crews later plucked the boy out of the water as he struggled to stay afloat, bobbing his head in and out of the water.
Wright said his officers stopped searching the beach on Thursday night, but there were a number of police officers patrolling the beach for the holiday weekend.
“Something like this, you never know for sure when the body is going to come in,” Wright said.
Riptides are a common hazard along the 26 miles of beach in Pacific County, he added. There are at least one to two drownings a year on the beach.
