What we’re learning about the IRONMAN Texas athlete who died in The Woodlands Saturday<\/a><\/p>\nMcDonald said he quickly realized a swimmer had gone underwater. He rushed to the area and began diving in an attempt to locate her.<\/p>\n
At one point, he said he felt her body but she was already deep in the lake.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI took a super big breath and went right back down right where I felt her, and she was gone,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was hard. Because when I came up, I knew I was going to her \u2014 just knew it.\u201d<\/p>\n
McDonald said he continued searching for several minutes, repeatedly diving underwater, but was unable to find her. The rescue effort later shifted to a recovery operation. A dive team found Araujo\u2019s body hours later, officials said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my mind, I thought she was always going to be alive,\u201d McDonald said. \u201cEven after an hour, it never registered to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Araujo\u2019s boyfriend told KHOU 11 she was an experienced athlete who had trained for the competition and was feeling completely find before the race. He said he wants her to be remembered as kind and passionate about the sport.<\/p>\n
McDonald said the tragedy has been difficult to process.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen God thinks it\u2019s your time, it\u2019s your time,\u201d he said. \u201cShe was doing something she clearly loved, and she was really good at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Representatives with Ironman did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the incident remains under investigation.<\/p>\n
Araujo\u2019s family is in Texas working to return her body to Brazil, where she will be laid to rest.<\/p>\n
Got a news tip or story idea? Email us at\u00a0newstips@khou.com<\/a>\u00a0or call 713-521-4310 and include your name and the best way to reach you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Authorities identified the athlete as Mara Araujo, 38, a fitness influencer from Brazil who had competed in Ironman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-258718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}