Ilya (25) & his pregnant wife, Sophia Tsaruk (26), drowned while snorkeling in the waters of Maui

[raisedbywolves]

https://www.wyff4.com/article/pregna...-trip/62268215

A 26-year-old pregnant mother and her 25-year-old husband drowned Sept. 14 while snorkeling in the waters off Maui, leaving behind a toddler, according to authorities and a GoFundMe campaign.

Ilya and Sophia Tsaruk were on vacation in Hawaii and had left their 18-month-old, Logan, with relatives, the GoFundMe page said. The Tsaruks lived in Snohomish, Washington, according to

On Saturday at noon, the Maui County Fire Department responded to a report of swimmers struggling in the waters of the Ahihi-Kinau Natural Area Reserve, located in the island's southwest corner, 6 miles south of Wailea, according to a news release. The reserve is a popular spot for snorkeling, as it still has intact coral colonies, according to Dan Dennison, a spokesperson for the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources.

"The only thing I found challenging in that area is it's hard to get in the ocean there because it's a rocky coastline," he noted.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory...uneral-support

[S281Saleen160]

Damn that sucks. I dont think I've ever heard of anyone drowning while snorkeling. Scuba diving yes but not snorkeling. She was pretty.

[Bewitchingstorm]

So sad. I wonder what happened? To think that little precious boy is left without his parents.

[raisedbywolves]

The undertow in Hawaii is no joke. I got caught up in it and swept out when I was a kid and my dad managed to jump in and find me and get us both safely back to shore. We have several other stories on here about snorkelers drowning there, and I think it's all due to the undertow.

[Boston Babe 73]

This is exactly why I stick to bathtubs and hot tubs (neither of which I have at the moment )
MAYBE the occasional pool. Safer that way.

[Angiebla]

The undertow in Hawaii is no joke. I got caught up in it and swept out when I was a kid and my dad managed to jump in and find me and get us both safely back to shore. We have several other stories on here about snorkelers drowning there, and I think it's all due to the undertow.

Wow you are lucky to be here! Do you remember it at all? Did you feel sucked under? Im sure it happened so fast. You must have been terrified!

I used to like snorkeling, but this is not the first death we've heard of. I think I will pass in the future.

Does it happen in waist deep water? Because thats as far out as I will go.

[Bewitchingstorm]

They think it was the type of masks they were using.

Ilya Tsaruk and Sophia Kovalevich died last weekend while snorkeling wearing full-faced snorkel masks. This once again brings up the question: Are these kinds of masks safe?

Tony Hoff has worked at Aaron's Dive Shop in Kailua for a year, but has been diving for 50 years.

"Many in the industry believe they could be unsafe and we don't really have any solid proof of that," he said.

Hoff says for some years now, Aaron's Dive Shop has decided to not carry full faced masks - to either sell or to rent to customers.

"The reason they use for them being unsafe makes sense to us; that is, that the full-face masks and snorkel combination have a much larger volume than a standard snorkel," he continued.

He means the volume of carbon dioxide that can accumulate in the mask.

"You could be building up a volume of CO2 inside that mask that makes you unable to get enough oxygen. For that reason, we stopped selling full-face mask-snorkel combinations a long time ago," explained Hoff.

https://www.kitv.com/news/concerns-g...78b9f4a59.html

[raisedbywolves]

Oh, I have never used these kind of masks but I have seen speculation before that they are unsafe. I thought for sure it was the undertow there.

[Angiebla]

I didnt even know they made full face masks.

[marshmallow]

I didn't know that either. Such a sad story.