Pair’s fatal swim lesson
Surf vics celebrating pal’s b’day
A Long Island couple was celebrating a friend’s birthday in the Rockaways when they were pulled under the waves, turning an on-the-fly swimming lesson into a tragic drowning, heartbroken relatives said Wednesday.
Umarie Chamble and Keylon Ramsay were on the sand near Beach Ninth St. and Seagirt Blvd. in Far Rockaway Tuesday about 10:20 p.m. when Chamble, 25, decided to give her boyfriend Ramsay, 28, a swimming lesson.
Within moments, the two disappeared into the ocean, a pal who was nearby told family members.
“They were celebrating a friend’s birthday,” Umarie’s cousin Sharifa Martin told the Daily News as tears welled up in her eyes. “Her boyfriend Keylon doesn’t know how to swim, and she was trying to teach him and that’s when it happened.”
A short time later, the Inwood couple was found floating in the surf unconscious. They were taken to St. John’s Hospital, where they died.
“(We’re) trying to get the whole story, trying to process it,” Martin, 33, said. “That’s not going over well because I’m still in disbelief.”
Chamble, a home health aide who also took classes at York College, was dating Ramsay for nearly a year. Ramsay worked as a Lyft driver and a photographer, Martin said.
“(Umarie) was fun to be around, family-oriented. Just a good person,” she said, describing her beloved cousin. “He was very nice. Funny. My daughter warmed up to him. He was good for my cousin.”
Tears started streaming down Martin’s face when she thought of her two children, particularly her 3year-old daughter who was very close to Chamble.
“I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to her,” Martin sobbed. “(My daughter) loved her.”
“I’m still in denial, disbelief. It’s my cousin, she just turned 25,” she said.
Last September, 17-yearold Lamine Star drowned in the waters off the Rockaways as he swam with friends near Beach 84th St. His body was found several days later.