CrossFit Games death: Witness describes drowning
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00:00How are you doing right now? How are you processing things? You said you were right there when it happened.
00:06Just walk me through everything that you've been through over the last few hours or so.
00:09Yeah, I mean, when it first happened, my heart was racing probably for a couple hours after.
00:16Absolutely devastated, not sure what to think, almost in denial.
00:21Over the last couple hours, I've talked to a lot of family members and a lot of friends just trying to process kind of what happened.
00:29It's very tough. I think it's going to take a while.
00:32Right now, I'll have moments where I'm okay and then moments where I'll just break down in tears, just in shock about what actually happened there.
00:42And the catastrophic effects that it's going to be for the next little bit.
00:50Did you know him at all personally?
00:53I didn't know him very well, but I did meet him in Dubai at the top of a hotel.
00:58We were staying at a hotel where they were staying at when he was competing.
01:01And the only thing I remember about him just was how nice he was.
01:04He didn't know who I was, but he took the time to talk to me, talked about the competition and how it was going for him.
01:12And he owed nothing to me. He didn't know who I was, but he took the time and it was very appreciative.
01:18I've always cheered for him just because of that moment.
01:21I know he has a brother that's competing as well.
01:27Watching his brother run up and down the sidelines of the water looking for him was something that I'll carry with me for a long time.
01:33And you were there when it happened?
01:36Yeah, we were on the side. He was probably 150 meters out in the water.
01:41And I saw it. I saw him start to kind of scramble. He started doing small turns and he was trying to get his head out of the water.
01:48And it was at that time that we started screaming to the lifeguard, like, he needs help.
01:52And then within seconds he was under and he never came back up.
01:56And I mean, watching the video, you can visibly see the two lifeguards there and him in the middle.
02:03It's like, I mean, from our standpoint, it just looks like nothing's being done to save him.
02:07But you had a different vantage point.
02:10No, I agree. There was two lifeguards right there.
02:13The one lifeguard, because somebody actually jumped in.
02:16And the one lifeguard came over and talked to him and told him to get out of the water.
02:20But he said, listen, somebody's drowning.
02:23She ended up going over to where he went under.
02:26But she just did a quick paddle around and then just paddled back out.
02:30I feel like at that point she needed to blow a whistle and stop the event.
02:35Because you could have had a lot more help in there pretty fast.
02:38And that was only like a couple minutes after he had gone under.
02:41So at that point something could have been done.
02:44But once the event's finished, it's 30 minutes gone, right?
02:47There's not much you can do at that point.
02:50And I know how, I'm not in the CrossFit community, but I work out, I know how close that community is.
02:55But your guys is just like elitely close.
02:58Just talk about how this impacts you guys as a family.
03:05I think the CrossFit community really needs to lean on each other right now.
03:09Use the support of one another because it's going to hit us all differently.
03:12It's devastating.
03:14I'm not too sure where the CrossFit Games is going to go from here.
03:17But they're going to have to make some drastic measurements to make sure that this never happens again.
03:21The community is very strong, which is going to help us get through this.
03:25But I'm just praying for his family.