Norfolk, Va. - A man died in a possible drowning Thursday evening in the calm bay waters of Ocean View.
Witnesses say 47-year-old John A. Langston was walking back to shore when he slipped and fell. "I thought it was somebody else, so I'm anxious to see if I can help out," said his friend Dan Thorton. "Then I look and I say 'Oh my God, that's Jack.'"
Thornton and the victim were supposed to go out in the water together, but the victim went in on his own.
"All he had to do was wait for me to go to the bathroom and grab a towel and we were going to go to the beach and he didn't wait and by the time I got down there they were dragging him out," Thorton said.
Nurses who happened to be at the beach took action to help the victim.
"Waves are coming in. I say 'Let's drag him up a little further before the next wave comes in,'" Thorton said.
By the time EMTs from Norfolk arrived, it was too late, the man had died.
"His eyes had already rolled up in the back of his head and he's foaming at the mouth and nose."
The victim had been staying with his girlfriend at the Ocean View Inn since Sunday.
Thorton says that he wasn't in good health and his friend wishes he would have waited just a few minutes longer, so the two could have gone in together.
