Seminary student and aspiring pastor, Dalton Cottrell of Iowa drowns while honeymooning with new wife, Cheyenne Hedrick at Saint Augustine, Florida beach.
An aspiring pastor from Iowa who had been married for three days drowned Tuesday while honeymooning in Florida, officials say.
Dalton Cottrell and his wife Cheyenne Hedrick, both 22, were in the water at Crescent Beach in Saint Augustine, Fla., when a strong current swept both of them out into the ocean, according to a St. Johns County Sheriff’s Department incident report obtained by Fox News.
Hedrick told police that it was Cottrell’s first time in the ocean and he began to ‘freak out,’ pulling her underwater with him as she tried to save him. The woman said that her husband bobbed above the surface after about a minute of being under along with his eyes rolling back in his head.
William Loy, another beachgoer, heard the couple yelling in the ocean and alerted a St. Johns County lifeguard.
The lifeguard dragged Cottrell, who was foaming at the mouth, to shore on his paddleboard and attempted to perform CPR.
Cottrell was rushed to Flagler Hospital in St. Augustine where he was pronounced dead.
Religious couple enrolled in seminary college had married three days before tragedy:
Cottrell and Hedrick were both seniors at Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary in Ankeny, Iowa. The school in a released statement said that the couple had married on Saturday in Kansas City.
‘I would like to encourage Eagle Nation to pray for, love, and support both Cheyenne and Dalton’s family,’ school president Dr. Jim Tillotson said in a statement. ‘ … May we do all we can to support all of them through this difficult time.’
A memorial service was scheduled for Wednesday night at the couple’s church in Des Moines.
