GLOUCESTER—David Machado took the lead and was having the time of his life, flailing his arms like a child as he walked over the rocks, Kristen Mayo-Machado said. But the tide was sweeping in and pounding the shore with waves.
Mayo-Machado says she heard her husband scream, and the two women thought he was just being silly. But the screaming continued.
“He had no control of the situation; it was written all over his face,” Mayo-Machado said Monday evening. “I was screaming to him, to grab hold of rocks, but everything was covered in moss and wet and slippery. The waves were slamming him against the wall and the rocks.”
Mayo-Machado said that Evelyn Howe, an experienced swimmer, tried to grab hold of him, but she slipped and was also in the water. Howe turned on her back and floated out to calmer water, Mayo-Machado said.
Mayo-Machado said she extended her leg so that her husband could grab on, but the distance between them was too great and the rocks too slippery.
At that moment, a massive wave arrived, almost tossing her into the sea alongside her husband, she said, and she retreated to safety. “And then I never saw him again.” She called 911.
“I thought that Evelyn would be fine because she seemed to float away from the danger, but I lost sight of her too,” Mayo-Machado said.
Fifty-three minutes later, Officers Chris Frates and Anthony Giacalone, searching from a police boat, spotted Howe and Machado face down on the ocean floor not far from shore, about 10 feet apart....
--more--"
