SNORKELING

KEY WEST, Fla. – A tourist from North Carolina died following a snorkeling trip off the Florida Keys, sheriff’s officials said. Erica Michelle Brown, 42, had been snorkeling with family and friends on a Fury Watersports boat on Sunday afternoon when she began signaling for help, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office said in a news release. Someone on the boat began CPR and it was continued when she was transferred to a U.S. Coast Guard boat, which took Brown to shore. Paramedics then took her to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, the sheriff's office said. The sheriff's office did not list a city in North Carolina where Brown lived.

KEY WEST, Fla. – A Florida woman died after snorkeling in the Keys over the weekend, officials said. Kim Ellen Schwinge, 63, of Port Orange, was on a snorkeling trip Sunday morning near Key West, according to a Monroe County Sheriff's Office news release. A family member noticed that Schwinge was having difficulties breathing in the water, officials said. She was taken to a commercial catamaran, where crew members began CPR. She was taken to a nearby U.S. Coast Guard station and then to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.