A newly released 911 call captured a Secret Service agent frantically telling dispatchers that the Obama family’s cook was drowning and still missing after falling off his paddle board near the former president’s Martha’s Vineyard estate.
“We have a guy drowning in the backyard right now,” an agent identified as Dave said in the first of two emergency calls after Tafari Campbell, 45, dropped his board and into Edgartown’s Great Pond in July, disappearing below the surface. all day.
“We’ve got our rescue swimmers, they’re trying to get there now,” Dave told dispatchers, according to heavily redacted audio obtained by the Daily Mail.
Dave called 911 at 7:46 pm and relayed that at least one swimmer and one other agent were on the boat to get to Campbell.
Rescuers did not witness the drowning but were alerted by another unnamed individual who rushed to their command with the tragic news.
It was not clear from the call who the individual was, but earlier reports indicated it was a second Obama staffer, the woman who was desperately trying to save her colleague as he went into the water.
A newly released 911 call captured a Secret Service agent frantically telling dispatchers that the Obama family chef had drowned and was missing after falling off his paddle board near the former president’s Martha’s Vineyard estate.Instagram / @sweetsagellc
“Someone ran to our back post, said a man, it’s just a house guest, is drowning out there,” Dave said.
The agent stumbled for a few seconds when the dispatcher asked if the federal team needed an ambulance or water rescue assistance, stating he wasn’t sure what was going on “back there.”
“They are not advising now. I’d say at least an ambulance,” Dave said.
The agent then asked if he could call 911 back on another line for follow-up communication, stating that “they are not relaying information over the radio right now.”
It’s unclear from the call who the individual was, but earlier reports indicated it was the second Obama staffer who desperately tried to save a colleague when Tafari Campbell fell into the water.Instagram / @michelleobama
The dispatcher agreed and gave Dave the number before ending the call with one last request: a basic description of the missing man.
Dave called the dispatcher back just a few minutes later with even more panic.
“So our rescue swimmers couldn’t locate the man who was reported drowned,” Dave said.
“They are in the water now but so far they don’t know where he is.”
Campbell’s body was found the next day in 8 feet of water about 100 feet from the banks of the Obama estate.
The dispatcher – a different man than before – asked the agent to give a detailed description of what Campbell had been wearing.
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Dave, who was calling from a Secret Service command post, was heard conferring over the radio with team members on the beach before he could describe the personal chef.
“He’s wearing all black, he’s on a paddle board, he’s 40 years old, black gentlemen, average build,” the agent replied.
“And we have our rescue swimmers on the boat in the area right now.”
Dave called the team twice more to confirm that Campbell’s paddleboard had been recovered, but he was not wearing a life jacket at the time of the tragedy.
Campbell’s body was found the next day in 8 feet of water about 100 feet from the banks of the Obama estate.
His cause of death was determined to be accidental drowning, with the medical examiner officially ruling “drowning in a body of water” as the culprit.
Details have been sparse since the crash last July and Massachusetts State Police have requested the identities of witnesses and USSS agents who reported to the scene be redacted from public reports.
Campbell, from Dumfries, Virginia, previously worked as a sous chef in the White House, starting under President George W. Bush and remaining through Obama’s two terms.
The Obamas then asked him to leave the White House with them and follow as their personal chef.
“Tafari was a beloved part of our family,” Obama wrote in a statement mourning his death.
“When we first met him, he was a talented sous chef at the White House — creative and passionate about food, and his ability to bring people together. In the years that followed, we got to know him as a warm, fun, incredibly kind person who brightened all of our lives.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
