Anguished mom prays for miracle on Facebook as son feared drowned in the Rockaways
The heartbroken mother of a 16-year-old boy feared drowned off the Rockaways pleaded for prayers on a Facebook livestream shortly after her son disappeared under the waves — hoping against hope that she could trade her life for his.
“Facebook… world, I don’t do this,” Aminatu Noah implored in a video posted on Friday, tears flowing down her pained face between bouts of heart-wrenching sobs. “But pray for my son! Pray for my son! I need your prayers!”
Noah’s son Elyjha Chandler was swimming with friends off Jacob Riis Park Friday evening when he and a 17-year-old pal disappeared under the waves.
“If there’s anything I ask of you, spare him and take me!” she prayed, her voice cracking under the strain during the four-minute video, shot as she sat in a car being driven to the Rockaways. “Please find him and spare him! He has so much to live for!”
First responders were called to the beach by Jacob Riis Park’s Bay 2 at about 6:30 p.m. after the beach was closed to swimmers for the night. NYPD Harbor Unit divers went into the water, rescue boats were dispatched and drones flew over the waterline to search for the two teens, but all these efforts proved fruitless.
The NYPD Harbor Unit divers temporarily paused their search Saturday evening due to inclement weather and a high rip tide, but planned to resume Sunday morning, cops said. Meanwhile, the NYPD Aviation Unit continued periodic flyovers to search for the teens using infrared technology.
“I don’t know what to say, I’m at a loss for words,” Elyjha’s father Urshel Chandler, 55, told the Daily News. He is estranged from Elyjha’s mother and said he didn’t know what happened to his son until a family friend told him about Noah’s livestream video. “I’m just hoping they find my son’s body so I can see him for the last time.
“I’m just staying, hopeful to see his body,” he said.
Lifeguards are on duty at Rockaway Beach from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily during beach season. Swimming is not permitted while they are off duty.
Elyjha was a junior at Wingate High School and was set to graduate next year, his father said.
“(He) loved playing basketball,” he said. “He played for four or five years.”
When Chandler heard what happened, he said he called his son’s cellphone and got the bad news first hand.
“A little kid answered the phone and he was screaming ‘Elyjha went under the water and no one can see him,'” he said.
Beachgoers on Saturday were watching the rescue boats searching the water.
“It was sad, very, very sad to hear,” said Nikolai Martynov, who was trying to beat the city’s heatwave with a dip in the ocean. “People come here to get away and relax, then hearing a tragedy like that is just heartbreaking.”
