A 28-year-old man died Friday evening after being attacked by a crocodile at a well-known beach in the resort city of Puerto Vallarta, as a vacationing family from San Clemente tried to intervene, according to witnesses and officials.
The incident happened at about 6:30 p.m. on Marina Vallarta Beach, near the Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort and Spa. Jalisco state police said the victim was a 28-year-old Mexican national who had traveled to the resort area for work.
Authorities recovered his body early Saturday morning, roughly 12 hours after the attack.
Jamie Yetter, her fiancé Chris Bury, and her teenage daughter were guests at the hotel and were spending time by the pool when they heard people screaming from the shoreline.
“We thought we saw a guy stuck in a rip current, so Chris took off down to the water, and I ran right after him,” Yetter told NBC Los Angeles.
Bury climbed into a kayak without paddles in an urgent attempt to get out to the man.
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“There were no oars. There was really nothing at the beach at all to help. We were just scrambling, trying to do what we could,” Bury said. “I was on the kayak right when he got pulled under.”
Despite the Orange County family’s efforts to help, the victim could not be saved.
Yetter noted that signage near the beach warns of jellyfish, stingrays and crocodiles in the water, but the family said they initially mistook the crocodile image for an iguana.
By Saturday morning, NBC reports that beachgoers were once again swimming in the same area with their families.
The incident happened near the site of a 2022 crocodile attack that injured two Colorado tourists in Jalisco.
The Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort and Spa has not commented on the latest attack.
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