Two teenage girls were pulled from the waters off Coney Island Beach in critical condition after going missing Friday evening, police and firefighters said. A male swimmer was reported missing.
Rescuers were called to the waters off Stillwell Ave. after two teenage girls went missing around 8:09 p.m., firefighters said.
FDNY divers and NYPD harbor, aviation, and emergency service units scoured the coast for nearly an hour and a half before recovering girls around 9:35 p.m., cops said.
Paramedics rushed the girls to Coney Island Hospital in critical condition.
Police are still searching for a male swimmer also believed missing, cops said.
Lifeguards on Coney Island beach clock off at 6 p.m. at which time swimming is prohibited.
The girls’ disappearance comes after Elyjha Chandler, 16, and Christian Perkins, 17, vanished in the water off Jacob Riis Park on June 21.
Search parties scoured the waters off the coast of The People’s Beach for more than a week, covering more than 600 square miles as the victims’ families held out hope they would be recovered alive.
But their hopes turned to ash after the body of a teenage boy was recovered near Beach 114th St. and the Ocean Promenade on June 29.
A second body was found about two miles away from Jacob Riis Park the following day, and by July 3 the city’s medical examiner had officially identified both bodies as the missing boys.
Christian and Elyjha were childhood friends and both attended Abraham Lincoln High School in Coney Island.
Christian’s family believes the boys were at football practice before heading to the beach to cool off as the city sweltered under a heat wave.
The city has suffered a chronic shortage of lifeguard since the outbreak of Covid in 2020 and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards called on the city to train and hire more life guards in the wake of the boy’s death.
15-year-old Markel Artis died last year after he was swept out to sea while swimming off Coney Island Beach. It took lifeguards at least four minutes to respond after he was noticed missing, his grieving mother told the Daily News last year.
two missing females were discovered, removed to coney island hospital in critical condition.
male swimmer missing, part of the same incident
aproximately 2135 hours
