Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Missing American Student Found Dead Off Sydney Beach


Sad outcome about the former Virginia high school football player who went missing after jumping off rocks into the water at Bondi Beach.

A body found off an Australian beach belongs to an American college student studying abroad, officials said. Endicott Ackerman went missing earlier this month after jumping into a wild storm swell at Bondi Beach, near Sydney. Search teams found a body about a quarter mile off the shore Saturday, and investigators used dental records to identify the Sydney University student, Australia’s ABC News reported. Ackerman, a Virginia native, graduated from Robinson High School in Fairfax in 2014 and began studying science at the Australian university.The 20-year-old headed to the beach and jumped from a cliff into the swelling waters on June 6, after several days of wild storms wreaked havoc on the coast. “He just jumped in when the waves were going out and when the waves came in again he went under and couldn't keep up,” a witness told local media. “Then he just disappeared.”Rescue teams scoured the waters in an exhaustive three-day hunt, but searchers found no signs of the student. The body was finally found Saturday, during a scaled-back search. Three other people died during the storms. Two men drowned in vehicles swept off roads by floodwaters in New South Wales state. Another man drowned after floodwaters flipped his truck in the Australian Capital Territory. The storms knocked out power to more than 85,000 homes and businesses. Nearly 300 people needed to be rescued from flooded areas across New South Wales, the state emergency services agency said.






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