Downey Youth Drowns in Surf
A nighttime dive for lobsters off Laguna Beach ended in death for a Downey youth Friday morning after a dramatic rescue attempt by lifeguards who battled eight-foot waves crashing onto rocks.
Two-dozen onlookers watched the waves pound rocky Moss Street Beach as lifeguards, police officers and paramedics searched in vain for Donald Gordon Mackay, 19.
Mackay’s body--still in his black wetsuit but stripped of his scuba tank, mask, fins and weight belt--was found washed ashore at Pearl Street Beach, about a quarter-mile north of where he and four diving companions had entered the water at 10 p.m. Thursday, Laguna Beach police said.
Waves as high as 15 feet pounded the Southern California coast all day Friday. The waves are from a storm system thousands of miles away in the Antarctic, the National Weather Service said.
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