The beach in Costa Rica where Malcolm-Jamal Warner drowned was known for its strong surf and dangerous rip currents, and was not protected by lifeguards when he died on Sunday. A second man who was rescued from the sea that day was in critical condition, the authorities said.
Warner, who shot to fame as a teenager when he played Theo Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” from 1984 to 1992, was swimming at a beach on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, south of Limón, when he was “apparently swept away by a current” around 2 p.m. on Sunday, the nation’s Judicial Investigation Department said in a statement.
Three ambulances, a jet ski and nine rescuers were dispatched to the area, Playa Grande, a popular tourist destination, a spokesman for the Costa Rican Red Cross said in a statement. Warner, 54, was pulled from the sea and given CPR for more than 20 minutes, but attempts to resuscitate him failed, officials said. A second man, 35, was rescued and taken to a local clinic in critical condition, the Red Cross said. He was not identified, and no other details were given.
The area, whose waves make it a favorite among surfers, is known for dangerously strong rip currents.
Mike Geist, the vice president of Caribbean Guard, a group of about 35 volunteer lifeguards who patrol three beaches in the area, said a lack of resources had left the beach where Warner died unguarded on Sunday. The group had temporarily moved its team to another beach that draws more people and had recently been the site of several rescues and a fatality.
“We had to make this judgment call, and it turned out to be bad,” Geist said, lamenting that his organization did not have the funds to staff the beach every day. “It sickens my stomach that we weren’t there, because I can’t tell you how many days I personally spent there on that post, in that guard stand, and because of stupid money, you know, and we just did not have enough people to do it.”
Geist said his friend, who is a surfer and a doctor, had pulled Warner from the water that afternoon. “Malcolm was on the floor of the ocean,” he said.
A spokesman for the Judicial Investigation Department said an autopsy that was conducted on Tuesday found that Warner’s death had been accidental, caused by asphyxiation by submersion.
Andrea Sánchez Campos, the owner of Faith Glamping Dome, a boutique hotel in the area, said that the beach was dotted with red flags and that the Costa Rican Tourism Board had also posted a number of warning signs.
“The accident occurred in an area frequently visited by surfers because it has strong waves,” Sánchez said in a telephone interview. She said the sea had been looking unusually rough and brownish in color the last couple of days. “The currents were extremely strong, and this was evident from the debris left on the beach,” she said.
Playa Grande is so well known for its rip currents that Chris Houser, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Waterloo in Canada, has taken students there to study them. Research has shown the rip currents there to be “extremely strong,” he said, able to sweep people offshore at a rate of six feet per second.
Though recent data is lacking, Professor Houser said that roughly 50 people a year drown in rip currents in Costa Rica, and that about two out of every five are tourists. There was an eight-day period in the early 2000s during which six drownings occurred, he added. The drownings have prompted the local authorities to put the lifeguard program into place, but lifeguards are “not there at all times, they can’t cover all the beaches,” he said. “There’s just not a lot of investment that is being made.”
News of Warner’s death shocked Hollywood. After Warner rose to fame as a teenager playing Theo Huxtable, he went on to a long and varied career.
Bill Cosby, who played his father on “The Cosby Show,” told 6ABC in Philadelphia on Monday that Warner had been professional and talented and worked hard on the set.
“When news came, it was shocking,” said Cosby, a former star whose career was derailed after more than 50 women accused him of sexual misconduct. “And of course, my thoughts went straight to his mother, who worked so hard. She was so wonderful with him.”
Warner was born in Jersey City, N.J. His parents divorced when he was 6 but maintained a close relationship throughout his life. After “The Cosby Show” he went on to star in several other shows, including “Reed Between the Lines” opposite Tracee Ellis Ross and later as Dr. AJ Austin for six seasons in the gritty drama “The Resident.”
As Warner’s star continued to rise over the years — finding success as a spoken-word poet and winning a Grammy Award in 2015 for his contribution to the Robert Glasper Experiment’s version of the Stevie Wonder classic “Jesus Children of America” — he kept parts of his private life to himself.
On the podcast “Hot & Bothered With Melyssa Ford,” Warner said this spring that he had sought to keep his wife and child out of the limelight.
“I talk about them, because they are obviously the hugest parts of my life, the best parts of my life, the best decisions I’ve ever made, but I like to keep them and their identity private,” he said.
“I love talking about them,” he continued, “because I want people to know that it is possible to be happy and to have love and love really be enriching.”
Derrick Bryson Taylor reported from New York, and David Bolaños from San José, Costa Rica. Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting from Mexico City, and Matt Stevens from Los Angeles. Kitty Bennett contributed research.