Two free divers who went missing off the shores of Hawaii were found dead on Sunday, officials said.
Raymond Tudela, 32, of Honolulu and 28-year-old Rupert Babauta, of Kaneohe, were found “unresponsive” offshore of Velzyland beach in the Sunset area of Oahu’s North Shore, according to the Honolulu Fire Department and Hawaii News Now.
The two men had been reported missing for several hours, fire officials said.
Responding firefighters spotted a submerged dive light about 150 feet from shore that was not moving and swam out to investigate. Rescuers dove underwater, found an unresponsive diver and brought him to shore at 4:42 a.m., the fire department said.
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Raymond Tudela, 32, and 28-year-old Rupert Babauta were found unresponsive near the North Shore of Oahu after failing to return from free diving. (GoFundMe)
Rescuers continued searching near the same area for the second diver.
Divers found the second diver unresponsive and brought him to shore just before 7 a.m., fire officials said.
The unresponsive divers were found near North Shore in Oahu, officials said. (Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images)
Tudela and Babauta were brothers-in-law and worked together at a Windward Oahu auto dealership, Hawaii News Not reported.
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“They both had two beautiful families, four children in one and two children in the other, and that’s six children now fatherless, and it just breaks my heart,” Jerry Romano, owner of the dealership, told the outlet.
The circumstances leading up to their deaths remain unclear. A medical examiner is working to determine their cause of death.
Darrell Tanaka, a veteran free diver and spear fisherman from Maui, told the station that he saw no clear evidence of risky behavior, and asked the public to avoid speculating about what happened.
“This is such a strange incident that we shouldn’t be speculating,” he said. “We need to show some respect and sympathy for the family of the divers.”
