By Courtney Dentch
Lavell Patrick, a Rosedale teen who drowned in the ocean off Long Beach last week, just finished his first year in high school and was preparing to leave Friday to spend the summer working and living with his grandfather in Monticello, his sister said.
Lavell, 15, got caught in a riptide June 19 after he and three friends crossed the Nassau border and went swimming in the ocean off Long Beach, Long Beach police said.
Rescuers searched the water for about four hours before finding the body of 15-year-old Lavell, which was discovered floating more than 300 yards from where he disappeared just after noon, police said.
Lavell, the youngest of nine children, is remembered as ambitious and a jokester by his eldest sister Nicole, 31. He played drums for his church and taught himself to play the keyboard, she said. Lavell was also a handyman, doing chores like shoveling snow, mowing the lawn, and often earning money from neighbors for these chores, she said.
“He was always doing something,” Nicole said. “He was the life of this house. He was the baby, but he thought he was the man of the house.”
Lavell and three friends, also from southeast Queens and about the same age, bicycled into Long Island on the morning of June 19, police said. After Lavell’s friends looked for summer jobs in the area, all four headed down to Long Beach to cool off. The boys were playing on and around the jetties off the beach when they were knocked off their feet and were caught in the current, Long Beach police said.
The other boys were able to fight the current, but Lavell was not, police said.
Lavell’s friends made it to shore and called police for help just after noon. Dozens of emergency workers responded to the call, including the Coast Guard, the Nassau County Marine and Air bureaus, Long Beach and Hempstead lifeguards, Long Beach, Island Park, and Freeport fire departments, Atlantic Beach Rescue, and Hempstead Constables, police said. But the search-and-rescue operation was declared a recovery effort at 2:50 p.m., police said.
Lavell was found at 4:20 p.m., and attempts to revive him failed, police said. He was taken to Long Beach Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Lavell had just finished his first year at Springfield Gardens High School, and after working with special education teachers he was ready to be placed in mainstream classes in the fall, said Renee Freeman, a paraprofessional at the school who worked closely with Lavell.
“He had excelled wonderfully here at Springfield,” she said. “He was a success story in special ed.”
Lavell had been working to overcome his reading and math difficulties, Freeman said. His mother and family were proud of his work and “torn apart” by his death, she said.
“We were planning to have a little cookout for him,” Nicole said. “His other sister, she was so proud of him she went out and bought him two brand-new pairs of sneakers.”
Freeman also remembered Lavell as a genuinely nice boy, she said.
“He was a wonderful kid,” she said. “He was very courteous, always respectful. He cared about everybody.”
Reach reporter Courtney Dentch by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com, or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 138.
