STATEN ISLAND — A Staten Island teenager drowned Tuesday in the waters off New Brighton, sources said.
Vaughan Mitchell, 15, was playing in the water near Jersey Street and Richmond Terrace with friends shortly before 5 p.m. when he either slipped or was pulled into deeper waters by the current, according to sources and the Staten Island Advance.
Mitchell, an eighth-grade student at Morris Intermediate School in Randall Manor, disappeared beneath the water as one of his friends ran to find help.
Emergency workers on shore, aboard boats and in a police helicopter searched the water for nearly an hour. They found Mitchell in cardiac arrest, fire officials said, and rushed him to Richmond University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.