Standing on the footsteps of her house, gripping her relatives for support, the grieving mother of a 15-year-old boy who drowned during a Memorial Day outing with his family, realized her 15-year-old son was never coming home.
“I’m not going see him no more,” Chrisie Snell said.
Her son, James Jamal Clark, had just finished his freshman year at Hallandale Beach High School, where he was a star member of the track team.
On Monday, he was at the beach at John U. Lloyd State Park. The red flags were flying, warning swimmers of rip currents, but the family was playing on the water’s edge.
According to the family, the teen was always afraid of the ocean.
“He Just recently would go out there and put his foot in,” said his aunt.
And then Clark did what his mom says he’d never done. He went in.
"My son, when we go to the beach, he hardly ever gets in the water," Snell said. "And if he does get in the water, he'll be at the edge. I don't know how he ended up that far."
By the time Snell noticed, it was too late.
“I turned around and saw my son trying to fight it," she said. "He went down, and he never came back up."
A diver later found Clark and brought him to shore. Recuers say he had a weak pulse, but later died Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital.