11 deaths in 2 weeks "apparently" from rip currents along Gulf Coast - including Tom Brady's former backup QB (at Patriots) 35-yr-old Ryan Mallett (today)
Rip currents have claimed the lives of 11 people within two weeks along the Gulf Coast, amid warnings from officials about the hazardous water conditions, according to preliminary data from the National Weather Service.
The deaths have spanned the Gulf of Mexico between Fort Morgan, Alabama, and Panama City Beach, Florida, the weather service said.
A rip current is “a relatively small-scale surf-zone current,” according to the weather service. It forms as waves disperse across the beach, “causing water to become trapped between the beach and a sandbar or other underwater feature” so, “the water converges into a narrow, river-like channel moving away from the shore at high speed.”
Rip currents and other surf conditions can pose danger at lakes, too.
Contrary to popular belief, a rip current won’t pull you under water, but they can pull even the strongest swimmer away from the beach beyond breaking waves, the weather service said. Rip currents often form at breaks in sandbars and close to piers and rock groins.
In the United States, the 10-year average for rip current fatalities is 71, according to weather service data. Rip currents were the third-leading cause of weather fatalities from 2013 to 2023, data shows, killing on average more people than lightning, tornadoes or hurricanes.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/27/us/rip-currents-deaths-florida-panama-city/index.html
TODAY:
CNN) — Former NFL quarterback Ryan Mallett died Tuesday in an apparent drowning off a Florida beach, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
First responders were called to a beach in Destin around 2:12 p.m. due to reports that a group of people in the water were struggling to make it to shore, the news release said.
Mallett went under the water and was not breathing when lifeguards pulled him out, the sheriff’s office said. He died at a local hospital, it added.
He was 35.
https://nbc-2.com/news/sports/2023/06/27/former-nfl-quarterback-ryan-mallett-dies-after-drowning-at-florida-beach