Tragedy struck: 15 paddle boarding females died this morning during IRONMAN 70.3 Ireland in Cork due too….

On July 24, Massachusetts State Police confirmed that Tafari Campbell, personal chef to Barack and Michelle Obama, drowned while paddleboarding on Edgartown Great Pond near the Obama’s home in Martha’s Vineyard.

Campbell, 45, was last seen by a fellow paddleboarder on Sunday evening. The witness told police they saw Campbell fall into the water, briefly struggle to stay on the surface, and then submerge without resurfacing.

The local fire department, local police, state police, and the coast guard arrived on scene around 8 p.m. Divers were sent in to search for the body, but as it grew dark, rescue efforts were paused over night. The next morning around 10 a.m., Massachusetts State Police discovered Campbell’s body while using a boat equipped with a side-scan sonar. The body was approximately 30 metres from shore at a depth of two and a half metres.

The Obama’s were not home at the time of the accident, but the couple did release a joint statement to U.S. publications describing Campbell as a “beloved part of our family.”

Over the last several years, paddleboarding has exploded in popularity, increasing the number of associated accidents. During the pandemic, the Outdoor Foundation, a non-profit committed to making the outdoors more accessible, found that 37.9 million U.S. citizens engaged in either kayaking, canoeing, or paddleboarding—an estimated 2.5 million new paddlers compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Simultaneously, the Water Sports Foundation (WSF), a non-profit that advocates for water safety, reported a record high 202 paddlesport fatalities in the U.S. in 2020, accounting for 26 per cent of the country’s boating deaths that year.

A major catalyst for this increase was paddlers’ lack of experience. “We know from analyzing U.S. coast guard data that in 2020, nearly three-quarters (74.6 per cent) of people who died in paddling accidents had less than 100 hours experience in the activity,” said Jim Emmons, WSF’s executive director, in a statement, “and over one-third (38.8 per cent) had less than 10 hours experience.”