13-Year-Old Boy Drowns in Pond While Mimicking Movie Stunt

PORT SALERNO, Fla. — A 13-year-old boy drowned mimicking a stunt he had seen in a movie when he tried to swim across a pond with a heavy tow chain wrapped around his waist, authorities said Tuesday.

Anthony Michael Alfonsin and some friends were trying to imitate a scene from the movie “Blue Crush,” in which a girl training for a surfer competition holds a large rock while running on the ocean bottom, police said.

Instead, the youths decided to use various items such as a baby carriage, a milk jug and a 10-foot tow chain they had found in a nearby clump of trees, witnesses told authorities. The youths then tried to swim across a 15-foot deep man-made pond Sunday night with the objects.

Danielle Stremski, 14, said she “went only a little bit of the way” with the chain. “I took it off because it was too heavy.”

Alfonsin then took the chain and tied it around his waist, Stremski told police.

Stremski said the friends tried to help Alfonsin but the chain was too heavy, adding, “he said he was drowning.”

The friends ran to the home of one of the children, but neither that girl’s parents nor rescue workers arrived in time to save the boy, authorities said.