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An 18-month-old baby has been left orphaned after his parents and unborn baby sister died in a snorkeling mishap in Hawaii.
Ilya and Sophia Tsaruk of Snohomish, Washington, died at Maui’s Ahihi-Kinau Natural Area Reserve on Saturday, according to KCPQ-TV.
First responders were summoned by a report of swimmers in distress. They first located Sophia Tsaruk, and later her husband, who was found at the bottom of the sea between 100 and 150 yards from the shore.
Attempts to revive them with CPR failed.
Ilya and Sophia Tsaruk were vacationing on Maui from Washington state when they apparently drowned Saturday while swimming and possibly snorkeling in waters off the Ahihi-Kinau Natural Area Reserve in the southwest corner of Maui.
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Family members said Sophia was also pregnant with a child due in December, according to KITV-TV.
“Her birthday is the day after Christmas,” Sophia’s sister Ilona Tsymbalyuk said of her sister.
“She was always talking about how she might deliver this baby girl that she was dreaming about on her birthday. They were planning to name her Melody because they both sang.”
On Saturday, Ilya and Sophia Tsaruk joined others who were snorkeling, but did not return when the others experienced trouble and came back to the shore.
“We don’t think that she suffocated in the mask,” Anatoliy Tsaruk, Ilya’s brother, said. “It might’ve just played a role in scaring her to panic. Everything is just speculation at this point.”
First responders were called after a report that someone had been heard in the water calling for help.
Ilya and Sophia Tsaruk leave behind Logan, who is 18 months old.
“There’s not a moment he’s alone,” Tsymbalyuk said. “Everybody’s constantly rotating wanting to hold him (Logan) because they left a little bit of him and her in him.”
“Yesterday, we lost a dear sister and brother, daughter and son, and beautiful niece, but we know that heaven received and gained the three of them with open arms,” Andrey Tupikov wrote on a GoFundMe page.
“Ilya and Sophia both loved the Lord and were always serving in the church and serving people around them. Sophia had the voice of an angel, and together with Ilya, they sang in a worship group in their church,” Tupikov wrote.
“The Kovalevich and Tsaruk families are grieving today, and this pain will not pass soon, but we continue to pray and lean on the Lord,” he wrote.
“We are blessed to have had both of them in our lives and are left now with the sweet memories and moments that we shared together with them. Their serving spirit and warm company will never be forgotten, and may God help us all to love and serve one another as Ilya and Sophia served,” he added.
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