Manatee County sheriff\u2019s detectives were investigating a drowning Sept. 18 near Passage Key off the north end of Anna Maria Island.<\/p>\n
At about 4:30 p.m., the MCSO received a rescue call for a possible drowning, according to a news release.<\/p>\n
Two adults were swimming just west of Passage Key near their anchored boat, a 2025 Bay Marine, when they encountered a rapidly incoming tide, according to the report.<\/p>\n
A wave caused one swimmer to go underwater and he did not resurface. The other swimmer contacted 911 and multiple agencies responded.<\/p>\n
The victim is Walter Mallette, 49, of Pinellas Park.<\/p>\n
West Manatee Fire Rescue and Manatee County Emergency Medical Services personnel located the victim, performed life-saving measures and transported him first to Galati Marine and then to HCA Blake Hospital in Bradenton, where he was pronounced dead.<\/p>\n
Passage Key, a national wildlife refuge, is a short distance from an area at the north end of Anna Maria known as Bean Point, where three drownings have occurred in 2025-26.<\/p>\n
MCSO said the investigation was ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manatee County sheriff\u2019s detectives were investigating a drowning Sept. 18 near Passage Key off the north end of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[164256,502,115,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-414485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-09-30-26","tag-community","tag-news","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414485","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=414485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}