Beachgoers still on edge

  • Bo Petersen
  • Posted: Sunday, July 12, 2009 12:01 a.m.
    UPDATED: Thursday, March 22, 2012 7:34 p.m.
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Folly Beach Firefighter Brian Purcel walks ashore Saturday from the personal watercraft he rode while searching for a body that a beachgoer thought he had spotted.
Bo Peterson/The Post and CourierFolly Beach Firefighter Brian Purcel walks ashore Saturday from the personal watercraft he rode while searching for a body that a beachgoer thought he had spotted.

FOLLY BEACH—Just the day before, a woman's body washed ashore near the Morris Island lighthouse. Three swimmers had been rescued from the roiling surf, and another swimmer missing over the past two days was on everyone's mind.

So when a man walking on the beach Saturday looked out past the breakers and thought he saw the head and shoulders of a body, he yelled for lifeguards at the nearby Folly Beach County Park. The sighting launched a three-hour search with park lifeguards, Folly Beach and Isle of Palms public safety workers joined by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter and a Charleston County Sheriff's search boat.

More than a dozen crafts and kayaks plied the water as a beach packed with anxious bathers watched. All that the searchers spotted was a turtle.

"A very large sea turtle with its head poked up," said Brad Wade, Folly Beach deputy public safety chief.

As searchers worked, the county park flew a red "no swimming" flag.

"That's scary," said Kelly Dallimonti of Johns Island, sitting up on her beach towel to watch her daughter, Rayne, 6, play in tide wash as the boats and watercraft passed behind her. The rescues and apparent drownings were why they came to the park instead of just to the beach, she said. "It was safer. They have lifeguards."

As the search wound down, Folly Beach Firefighter Brian Purcel slogged wearily through the surf from his personal watercraft and pulled a bottle of water from the public safety beach cart. No, he hadn't spotted a thing. "Oh, it's dark. It's dark water," he said. "And it's rough."

There was no sign of Anna Finkelstein Saturday, two days after the New York City woman in her 20s was seen struggling in a powerful tidal current near Breach Inlet on Sullivan's Island.

Sullivan's Island police could not be reached for comment about Tara Lynn McAllister, 39, of Goose Creek, whose body was found in the surf line across from the lighthouse shortly after daybreak Friday. Her car was found on Sullivan's Island.

The death, the missing swimmer and the rescues have beach workers and bathers on edge, Wade agreed.

"Anything they see, I'm sure we'll get a good notification on. With the prevailing currents, this end of the island might certainly be a focus today," he said. "At this point we're all keeping a sharp eye out."