Special trip to beach turns tragic for 12-year-old girl
On Friday, Aiyonna Jones went to North Avenue Beach with the neighbors.
The 12-year old loves the water. Her mom takes her to Rainbow Beach all the time.
But this trip was special for the Bush neighborhood girl because “up north they got all the best stuff,” Aiyonna’s mom, Lashanna Rule, said.
But sometime after 4 p.m., a powerful set of waves rolled as Aiyonna and her pals played in the shallow water. They were holding hands when the first wave pounded them. The kids screamed, but no one heard them. A second powerful wave pummeled the beach, witnesses told Rule, who was at home that afternoon.
“They were holding hands. They were screaming while jumping up and down, hollering for help and big waves came in again and took them underwater,” Rule said. “The water separated their hands. The current pulled her under, and the wave pushed the other kids the opposite way. My baby didn’t come back up.”
Kids ran to tell the lifeguards.
When a lifeguard finally found her, Aiyonna, — a 5-foot-2 seventh-grader who wasn’t a strong swimmer — was in 9 feet of water. She was under for nearly 30 minutes, Rule said. Paramedics rushed Aiyonna to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and she was later transferred to Lurie Children’s Hospital. She hasn’t regained consciousness.
“Yesterday her pupils were dilating, now they are not. Doctors are saying swelling on the brain is getting worse,” Rule said. “They’re going to test to see if the brain is dead . . . they say she was underwater too long.”
Later Sunday evening, she said Aiyonna was on life support, but Rule had given up hope.
“I need help putting my baby to rest,” Rule said.
As the unemployed single mother waited Sunday nervously for doctors to tell her if Aiyonna would recover, Rule wondered why it took lifeguards “that f------ long to find her.”
“How do you let this happen. It’s preposterous. I need some answers,” Rule said. “They need to tell me why people at the beach took that long. I’m not getting that.”
A Chicago Park District spokeswoman declined to comment Sunday.