As the lifeguards prepared to end their shift, a 77-year-old Russian grandmother visiting her family in Brooklyn was having such a good time at Manhattan Beach Park she called her daughter and told her to hold off on picking her up.
“It’s breezy. It’s good weather,” Liudmila Marchenko told her daughter. “”Give me an hour.”
Minutes later, tragedy befell the beloved grandmother. Swimmers discovered her floating face down in the surf just as the lifeguards’ shifts ended that day, Aug. 11, her daughter told the Daily News.
“Between our conversation with my mom, the call and the accident, probably 15 minutes,” said Natalia Sapunkova. “People who were swimming around found my mom floating face down and called to lifeguards, but it happened at 6 o’clock, maybe 6:01 p.m., and of course, lifeguards are finishing at this time.”
Park Enforcement Patrol officers alerted lifeguards to Marchenko’s plight in the waters off the park near Oriental Blvd. around 6:15 p.m., a spokesman for the Parks Department said.
Lifeguards administered CPR to the victim while awaiting paramedics, who rushed the victim to Coney Island Hospital, where she was declared dead around 7 p.m., the Park spokeswoman said. Because the incident occurred after the beach is closed to swimmers, lifeguards were not on duty, the Parks spokeswoman said.
Marchenko, a resident of the southwest Siberian city of Kemerovo and a former accountant for the Russian state road and rail service, had flown into the country on July 15 to celebrate her daughter’s birthday and spend time with her family living in Sheepshead Bay.
A family friend recalled the festivities for Sapunkova’s Aug. 1 birthday bash, where Marchenko spoke to the crowd, recited a poem and sang beautifully for her daughter.
“She made this speech, a beautiful speech, and she was singing a song dedicated to her daughter,” said Sofia Kozel. “She gave me such an impression. She was very beautiful. Loved to live.”
During her stay in the U.S., Marchenko decided she wanted to see the White House and her family took made a day trip to D.C. where they visited the National Gallery and posed for pictures outside the Washington Monument.
But, for the woman hailing from a landlocked region of Siberia, her favorite destination was Brooklyn’s southern coast, where she could spend hours bobbing in the surf, her granddaughter said.
“She was at the beach every single day. She would just stay in the water almost the whole entire day. In Russia, you don’t really have a beach like that,” said 20-year-old Yana Sapunkova. “Even though Coney Island and Manhattan Beach are a little dirty, it’s still something compared to nothing. She really enjoyed it.”
The victim’s daughter said her mother had been at Manhattan Beach for hours when she rang around 5:45 p.m. on Monday and said she wasn’t ready to depart the coast.
“She called me around 5:45 p.m. and I said, ‘Okay, I’m home. Are you ready for pickup?’ She said, ‘No, give me more time.’”
Natalia Sapunkova only wanted to give her mother another half hour, but that Marchenko haggled with her until she agreed to a 7 p.m. pickup. When she arrived, however, her mother wasn’t answering her phone.
Marchenko’s daughter said she went searching for her mother near a flat rock on the beach that had become her usual spot. She found her bag, clothes, shoes and phone, but her mother was nowhere to be seen, Natalia Sapunkova said.
After searching for an hour, Natalia Sapunkova contacted police who directed her to the 61st Precinct in Coney Island to fill out a missing person’s report. It was there she learned of her mothers tragic fate after meeting two police officers who responded to the drowning.
“I can’t accept it,” Natalia Sapunkova said. “In my brain, in my mind, it’s not acceptable. She’s still with me.”
The victim’s granddaughter was attending a music festival in Pennsylvania when her mother called with the tragic news of her beloved grandmother’s death.
“She was part of the reason why my childhood was as good as it was,” said Yana Sapunkova. “I had such an amazing grandmother who always showed love to us.”
Marchenko’s daughter said she hopes other beachgoers take a lesson from her mother’s death and stay on land when lifeguards are off duty.
“I hope this story will help someone be safe in the water,” said Natalia Sapunkova. “If you want to swim so late after lifeguards, only you are responsible.”
