Dreams to tragedy
Drown vic wanted to learn Japanese & design
An ambitious Ecuadoran immigrant scrawled his dreams across sticky notes posted in his Queens bedroom: Learn to drive, speak better English, become a graphic designer.
The heartbroken mother of Joel Ismael Leon-Espinoza sobbed while recounting her ambitious 21-year-old son’s hopes for the future, all washed away when he drowned in the waters off Rockaway Beach.
“He never stopped,” said mom Elsa Espinoza, 45, who immigrated with her son to Queens just two years ago. “He wanted to learn Japanese and visit Japan. He was working, getting his papers, studying.”
A stranger recalled the grim scene in the waters off Beach 98th St., where she later found the young victim’s backpack splashing in the tide — with his cell phone inside, ringing over and over.
The caller was the victim’s mother, frantically trying to reach her lost son.
“It’s so sad just hearing her voice,” that witness Linda Escobar, 31, told the Daily News. “It’s really sad ... I had this kid on my mind ever since this happened and I just cry. They probably came here trying to get a better life, just like my family, and it’s all so tragic.”
The young immigrant was pronounced dead at St. John’s Hospital after would-be rescuers pulled Leon-Espinoza from the water.
The victim headed to the beach with his skateboard following a long day of work at his construction job on June 17, bidding his mother a final farewell on his way out the door on the 90-plus degree day.
Leon-Espinoza, who loved to swim and was eager to take up surfing, traveled alone, according to his weeping mom. She shared with the Daily News a video her son had taken of himself relishing a recent day at the beach.
The guitar-playing young man with the big grin had stayed in touch with his younger siblings in their homeland after arriving in the city, with plans for the family to reunite in Queens at some point, according to the mom.
Escobar became aware of the crisis when a helicopter appeared overhead at the beach while surfers on their boards tried to reach the drowning man.
“You’re not supposed to swim there because it’s where people surf,” she recounted. “[The surfers] were crowding him in, like helping him out. The helicopter people jumped into the ocean waters.”
Leon-Espinoza was one of two fatalities at Rockaway Beach that unseasonably hot day. Diaka Kourouma, 16, drowned in a riptide as she swam nearby with friends, and was pronounced dead at the same hospital. Her worried father, who was visiting relatives in Guinea, had warned her to be careful on her first trip to the beach that day.
Both drowned around 6 p.m., when lifeguards end for the day. Rockaway Beach has become a confusing grid of areas that are off-limits due to a $336 million beach rehab project by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The area where Leon-Espinoza drowned is supposed to be for sand recreation only until at least mid-July.
Escobar recalled telling an emotional Espinoza that she found the young man’s skateboard inside the backpack left behind on the beach. The victim’s brother came by to pick up his sibling’s bag one day after the death.
“When I told her I had the skateboard, she cried,” said Escobar. “His little brother was asking for it. It’s little stuff, but it means something.”