16 year old girl feared drowned at Rockaway Beach

[bluesdude71]

You always feel bad reading something like this. I hope at least for her mother they can find the body.







Coast Guard Search For Queens Teen Suspended

Girl, 16, Disappeared Off Rockaway Beach Friday Afternoon

By CAROLYN COSTELLO, CBS 2 HD News

ROCKAWAY PARK, N.Y. (CBS) ― The search for a missing teenager who disappeared while cooling off at a Queens beach on Friday was suspended Saturday night after rescuers failed to find her body.

The Coast Guard and other emergency services units spent all day Saturday combing the waters off Rockaway Beach for 16-year-old Teara Coasum, who witnesses said was swept away by rough waters a day earlier.

CBS 2 HD spoke with Coasum's distraught mother.

Helicopters buzzed overhead early Saturday as divers continued to search below the surface for Coasum. Her mother -- at her home in Queens -- said she can do nothing but pray.

"I haven't slept. I haven't eaten. I have been up all night worried about my child," Tekhia Williams said.

Williams was at work Friday when she says Teara went to the beach with a group of friends. Witnesses say Coasum was in the water with one of those friends when both got swept under. Rescuers were able to pull out Carla Armaza, but a day later there was still no sign of Coasum.

"I need peace right now," Williams said. "The only peace I can have I need to touch and feel my daughter and I need to know where she is and I don't know."

Police closed off a small section of the beach to conduct their search. Just 50 yards away people were enjoying a Saturday in the sun.

"Oh, I'm always with them. Once they go in I sit with them by the water," Queens resident Caroline Barruci said of her children.

For a mother like Barruci, the search nearby is a reminder of the ocean's power.

"You can feel it out there. You know," she said.

Coast Guard Cmdr. Greg Hitchen had said earlier Saturday that rescue and recovery efforts would continue until at least sundown, but Petty Officer Third Class Barbara Patton confirmed the search was suspended indefinitely around 8:10 p.m.

"We hate to give up searching so we try to exhaust every avenue we can until we have to decide chances are slim we'll find somebody," Cmdr. Hitchen had said.

The other teen victim is expected to be fine.

[BassBuddah]

Bummer, thoughts and prayers, rip