A 12-year-old from metro Atlanta died Thursday after being on life support for a week at a Florida hospital, according to a family friend. He was swept up in a rip current while on vacation, she said.
Addie Jones took her son Braylon and his friend Rashad Williams to a beach near Pensacola for a few days over spring break. They were swimming near two other Atlantans who drowned in the current last Thursday. Jones said the two groups didn’t know each other.
“It was a beautiful day,” Jones said. “[There weren’t] any signs of a storm or anything. It didn’t give me the heads up not to … let them get in the water.”
The boys had been getting in and out of the ocean for two hours beforehand, she said. They went back and forth from the beach to the swimming pool at the hotel where they were staying. Then, in the early afternoon, she said the riptide knocked them over.
Rashad went under, Jones said. Braylon couldn’t see him but made it back to shore himself.
“[Braylon is] shook,” she said. “He’s scared. He’s questioning himself. He felt he could have helped, but he said the more he tried to fight the water to swim toward the land, the waves kept pulling him back.”
Dee Vallee is a John’s Creek resident who was visiting the same beach on the day of the drownings and helped with the rescues. She said her 15-year-old daughter, Brin, brought Braylon to shore. Vallee said she was heartbroken to hear about Rashad.
“He still has to get home,” she said. “They still have to make his funeral arrangements. All these things cost money.”
Jones is trying to help Rashad’s mother raise money through a GoFundMe page for his funeral expenses.
The two mothers have been friends since they were teenagers, Jones said. Rashad was a seventh-grader at Ralph J. Bunche Middle School in Atlanta Public Schools, she said.
“Knowing that Rashad went down there with me, it really hurts me,” Jones said. “It really hurts me that that baby didn’t come back. It hurts real bad.”
A funeral service for Coach Charles Johnson, who drowned while trying to save 16-year-old Bryce Brooks, will be held Saturday, April 15 at Ebenezer Baptist Church at 10 a.m.
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