Drowned sailor's family searching for answers from tight-lipped Navy SEALS
The sister of a Navy SEAL trainee who died in May after participating in a grueling pool exercise, says her family was ‘misled’ by Navy officials, NBC reports.
Navy officials told Seaman James "Derek" Lovelace's family that the 21-year-old drowned in a freak accident during SEAL training in California in May, Lovelace's sister, Lynsi Price, told NBC News.
Price told NBC that she was shocked, in part because her brother was a strong swimmer and had prepared for SEAL training for two years by swimming and running on the coast of the Florida town where the family had lived.
"I knew in my heart that something wasn't done right, because he would have made it,” Price told NBC News.
Price said she and her father, Iraq War veteran James Lovelace, believed Navy officials when they assured them it was an accident, NBC reported.
But Price’s suspicions were confirmed in early July when a San Diego County medical examiner report concluded that Lovelace’s death was a homicide.
When Lovelace died in May, Naval Special Warfare Command said he was participating in introductory pool training as part of the grueling Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL course and that instructors pulled him from the pool after safety observers saw he was struggling, the Navy Times reported.
The death investigation, which was based on video and interview, states instructors splashed Lovelace in the face for nearly five minutes after they saw he was struggling to swim the length of the pool in utilities and boots.
An instructor dunked his head underwater at least twice — an action prohibited during this training evolution, the report said, the Navy Times reported.
Observers said Lovelace was clearly in trouble during the training, that his face was purple, and his lips were turning blue. One observer said he was considering calling a training time out, the Times reported.
Naval Special Warfare Command spokesman Lt. Trevor Davids told the Navy Times that he could not comment because of an ongoing Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation into Lovelace’s death.
Price told NBC she hopes the instructor will be held "accountable for his actions, as well as the chain of command."
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Contributing: David Larter, The Navy Times