An 81-year-old man drowned in shallow water near the shoreline in Ormond Beach on Wednesday afternoon, according to a Volusia County Beach Safety post cited by Headline Surfer. Lifeguards found him unresponsive at 12:24 p.m. and began life-saving efforts before he was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Ormond Beach Fire Department personnel co-responded with Volusia County Beach Safety crews to perform emergency CPR and other lifesaving care at the scene, according to FOX 35 Orlando. Beach Safety has not said what caused the drowning, and as of this report, officials have not released the man's name or his home community, according to Headline Surfer.
Agency Urges Bathers to Stick Near Staffed Towers
In the wake of the death, Volusia County Beach Safety again advised beachgoers to swim only in front of a staffed lifeguard tower and to download the Volusia Beaches App for real-time updates on tower locations, beach ramp accessibility, and daily hazard flag warnings, per the same Headline Surfer report. The app is the county's primary tool for steering swimmers away from unguarded stretches of the 47 miles of Atlantic coastline that fall under the agency's jurisdiction, according to Visit Florida.
That coastline is patrolled by 53 full-time officers, 11 dual-certified lifeguard and EMT personnel, and roughly 200 seasonal lifeguards working out of four main stations and five year-round control towers, per a Facebook video from Volusia County Beach Safety. Florida law also requires a uniform, color-coded flag system, ranging from green for low hazard to double red for a full water closure, to be posted at every beachfront approach, tower and public park, according to the Volusia County government.
A Pattern of Drownings Away From Guarded Zones
Wednesday's death fits a pattern local officials have flagged repeatedly this year: ocean drownings in Volusia County tend to happen away from staffed towers. Over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, county lifeguards carried out 347 ocean rescues and 391 preventative safety actions reaching more than 7,300 beachgoers, yet still recorded two fatal drownings, both in unguarded ocean zones, according to Volusia County Beach Safety.
Just one day before that holiday weekend began, a 60-year-old man drowned off an unguarded section of nearby Daytona Beach after a kayaker spotted him floating 80 to 100 meters offshore and held him up with paddles until rescuers arrived, as previously reported by Hoodline. Lifeguards pulled 194 other bathers from hazardous surf that same day, FOX 35 Orlando reported. In December 2025, another fatal drowning in Ormond Beach involved a bather spotted floating face down 150 yards offshore in a zone where the nearest open lifeguard tower was more than 1.5 miles away, forcing rescuers to move the victim in a lifeguard vehicle bed because of soft sand conditions, according to a Volusia County Beach Safety Facebook post.
Seniors Face Rising Drowning Risk Nationally
The victim's age places Wednesday's death within a broader trend documented by federal health officials. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Vital Signs report released in May 2024 found that adults 65 and older have the second-highest fatal drowning rate in the country, with deaths among adults 65 to 74 surging 19 percent between 2019 and 2022. Medical events and age-related physical limitations often compound drowning risk in open water, according to the CDC report.
Florida's overall drowning toll underscores the stakes. More than 500 Florida residents died from unintentional drowning in 2023, ranking the state fifth nationally in total unintentional drowning fatalities across all age groups, per Florida Department of Health statistics. To combat the toll, Volusia County Beach Safety unveiled an indoor mobile rip current simulator at the Daytona State College Aquatic Center in February, using it to teach bathers to swim parallel to shore to escape pulling currents, FOX 35 Orlando reported.
Wednesday's incident joins a string of fatal water emergencies across Volusia County this year, including a Winter Garden teen who drowned in rough surf off Ormond Beach in March and a DeLand mother who died saving her son from the St. Johns River in July. Officials have not said whether a medical event played a role in Wednesday's death, and the precise underlying cause remains undetermined, per Beach Safety.
