The body of Wesley Belisle was found on Monday, days after he was swept by a wave in North Carolina
The body of a four-year-old boy has washed up on a beach, five days after a wave swept him away.
Wesley Belisle’s body was found on Carova Beach, North Carolina by the Currituck County Sheriff’s Office on Carova Beach, around 34 miles from where he was last seen, according to USA Today.
The New Hampshire boy went missing after he was swept into the sea on Wednesday while walking with his mother along a Kitty Hawk beach.
The Sheriff’s Office said in a statement: ‘We hope that the outpouring of compassion and offers of support, thoughts and prayers to the Belisle family from people all over the world can bring them some amount of solace in this time of tremendous grief.’
They added that Wesley’s family is making arrangements to transport his body back to Manchester, New Hampshire.
Wesley’s mother Lindsey frantically looked for him after he was swept into the ocean, and spotted him briefly. However, another wave crashed in and she lost sight of him in the surf, the US Coast Guard said.
Wesley, from New Hampshire, was on vacation with his family when tragedy struck
He was walking with his mother Lindsey along Lillian Street Beach in Kitty Hawk last Wednesday when tragedy struck
The New Hampshire Union Leader reported the family had visited an aquarium and went on a wild horse tour the day of the tragedy.
‘Wesley was excited to visit the state of North Carolina. We spent some of our days on the beach: collecting shells, digging holes in the sand, building sandcastles, and walking on the beach as a family with our dog,’ Wesley’s family wrote to the organizers of a memorial service organized by volunteers on Sunday.
About 75 gathered at the Kitty Hawk beach to honor Wesley at Lillian Street Beach access in Kitty Hawk.
The Coast Guard deployed a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew and a 47-foot Motor Lifeboat crew to search for the boy before the mission was suspended on Wednesday night.
‘We spent some of our days on the beach: collecting shells, digging holes in the sand, building sandcastles, and walking on the beach as a family with our dog,’ Wesley’s family said
A make shift memorial was erected for the boy on the beach at Lillian Street Beach in Kitty Hawk
Until Monday, the only trace of the four-year-old was his hat which turned up two miles north of where he went missing in the surf, according to 13 News Now.
Waves at the beach were as high as six-feet when Wesley went missing.
Jeremy Thomas with the Coast Guard said ‘the currents in North Carolina are bad.’
‘It’s always a danger near the ocean,’ Thomas said. ‘It’s just a tragic case. No one wants to see something like this happen.’
A makeshift memorial to the boy was set up along the beach where the boy went missing.
Wesley’s family is making arrangements to transport his body back to Manchester, New Hampshire
Until Monday, the only trace of the four-year-old was his hat which turned up two miles north of where he went missing in the surf