Newly wed couple drowns on treacherous beach

By STEVE RUBENSTEIN
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
A California high-tech worker and his new wife drowned while swimming at a beach with notoriously treacherous surf on the northwest coast of Maui, authorities said.

The unidentified man and woman, believed to be about 30 years of age each, died last Friday after being pulled from the water by rescue workers, according to Ellen Pelissero, a public information officer for the island of Maui.

Rescue workers with a helicopter and jet ski were summoned to the Olivine Pools area north of Lahaina around 1 p.m. and found the man floating face down and the woman treading water. Both victims were pulled from the waves in baskets lowered from the helicopter and taken to a local hospital, where they died.

The couple had driven a rental car from their hotel to the beach, which Pelissero said is usually avoided by locals because of its dangerous conditions.

"The current is always heavy," Pelissero said. "No locals swim there. Since the earthquake in Japan, there have been even bigger currents, but the normal conditions are treacherous enough."

In 2004, a 41-year-old man from California drowned at the same beach, authorities said.