Drowning victim ID'd; Battery dead in defibrillator

MIRAMAR BEACH — The name of a man who died after being pulled out of the gulf unconscious Monday at Hidden Dunes beach access has been released.

John H. Hess, a 62-year-old visitor from Kentucky, was pronounced dead at the hospital at 2 p.m. on Monday, according to a Walton County Sheriff’s Office incident report. He was vacationing at Hidden Dunes with his wife and son.

Cindy Pike, a nurse practitioner from Alabama, was on the beach about 1:20 p.m. when she heard her sister yelling for help. She looked and saw two men pulling Hess out of the water.

She was one of three, including two doctors, to administer CPR until South Walton Fire District crews arrived on scene.

One of the doctors along with a beach vendor pulled Hess from the water, Pike said Tuesday. The vendor, 21-year-old Elliot Chlebowski, told the sheriff’s deputy that he thought he felt a faint pulse while rescuing the man, the report states.

Chlebowski said that he had been flagged down by a woman who told him a man needed help in the water. He went out and located Hess, who was floating face down.

“We started CPR immediately,” Pike said, adding that she wanted his family to know that medical personnel were with him immediately.

In addition to Pike, a doctor and a cardiologist took turns doing chest compressions, the report said. At one point, one of the doctors requested an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED), and the deputy ran up to Hidden Dunes but could not locate one.

Pike said a deputy on scene told her that the county had purchased a number of AEDs several years ago but had not purchased batteries for them so he did not have one.

“That could have been a lifesaving piece of equipment,” Pike said.

Walton County Sheriff’s Capt. Shepard Bruner confirmed that the beach patrol’s AED did have a dead battery.

Bruner said the Sheriff’s Office requested new batteries for its units several days prior, and received them on Monday. Most of the AEDs were turned in for new batteries Monday, but the one at the scene that day had not been.

Bruner said that the Sheriff’s Office inherited 30 AEDs from the South Walton Fire District and several of them had dead batteries. He said the AEDs are inspected monthly for dead batteries but don’t carry an expiration date.

“Ultimately we need to have the batteries in the AEDs whether they would be useful that day or not,” Bruner said.

Hess’ cause of death has not been determined, said South Walton Fire District Deputy Chief Sean Hughes. He said results from an autopsy could take a week.

Pike said that after Hess was taken to the hospital, a group of people gathered on the beach and held hands, praying for him.

She was also vacationing in the area five years ago when Jamie Marie Daigle, a Louisiana teen, was fatally bitten by a shark.

Pike returned to the beach Tuesday afternoon to set up a small memorial for Hess.

“You feel kind of empty; you want do something,” she said. “It brings closure to the people involved.”