{"id":183184,"date":"2026-03-08T13:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T13:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/183184\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T13:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T13:38:08","slug":"body-of-missing-central-florida-swimmer-recovered-from-st-johns-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/183184\/","title":{"rendered":"Body of missing Central Florida swimmer recovered from St. Johns River"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A 22-year-old drowned Saturday afternoon in the St. Johns River while snorkeling near French Landing in Orange City. The Volusia Sheriff\u2019s Office identified the victim as Samuel Oche of Daytona Beach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Oche was reportedly immersed underwater after struggling to swim approximately 50 feet offshore. His girlfriend and several witnesses entered the water to rescue him, but the strong current caused them to lose their grip and eventually lose sight of him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Deputies arrived at French Landing around 4:18 p.m. on Saturday. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, along with the Volusia Sheriff\u2019s Office Air One unit, helped search for the missing swimmer.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Search teams employed boat sonar to locate the victim\u2019s body, leading to the Volusia Sheriff\u2019s Office dive team recovering Oche from the river around 8 p.m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Volusia Sheriff\u2019s Office issued a statement following the recovery of the Daytona Beach resident. \u201cThe Sheriff\u2019s Office sends sincere condolences to Samuel\u2019s loved ones for their tragic loss,\u201d the agency said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/mobile-apps\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Click here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:click here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ylk=\"ct:story;elm:img;itc:0;\" class=\"stretched-box\" href=\"https:\/\/wftvapps.com\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"537\" height=\"108\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/beda08358d6db9816e7b0d066edd22cf.jpeg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 22-year-old drowned Saturday afternoon in the St. Johns River while snorkeling near French Landing in Orange City.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3160,28,30,29,86300,5903,26516],"class_list":["post-183184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-daytona-beach","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-french-landing","tag-st-johns-river","tag-volusia-sheriffs-office"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}