Police, beachgoers search waters off Port Stanley beach for missing swimmer

Emergency crews and members of the public were combing the shore of Port Stanley's main beach on Sunday for a swimmer who went into the water and didn't resurface.

Elgin County OPP said a 44-year-old and 17-year-old from London were spotted in distress on Lake Erie at about 1 p.m. and were rescued by the Central Elgin Beach Rescue Service. Once they were on shore, they told lifeguards that a third person was still in the water.

Police were called to the beach with air and marine units at around 2:20 p.m. The missing swimmer has been identified as a 14-year-old.

Lise Barakat was enjoying a day at the beach with her family when she says lifeguards began swarming the pier on the eastern end of the beach.

"I thought it was multiple people in the distress, (that) they'd gotten on the wrong side of the caution buoys, too close to the pier... and all the other allied agencies showed up," she said just after 5 p.m.

"We've not seen anybody being brought in, there's been no CPR, no action taken on anybody who's been brought out of the water."

Several dozen beachgoers linked arms to form a human chain, Barakat's husband among them. A number of people involved were doing so without life jackets, meaning the chain can only get so far out, she said.

"They've been at it for two-and-a-half hours... Some people have come out just exhausted from the huge waves beating them down."

"We have young children. So he's taking this quite hard, and he's probably dehydrated and a bit of sunstroke by now."

Someone who appeared to be the teen's mother was visibly distraught, and was taken under the care of paramedics, she said.