Update: Belmont Man Swept Into Sea off Gloucester, Drowns

It was suppose to be a trip to escape the heat; two long-time Greek friends and Belmont neighbors who loved to fish in the ocean heading out to the seashore.

But the journey to Gloucester's rough eastern tip turned tragic when one of the friends was swept off a rock cropping by a powerful wave associated with the approaching Hurricane Earl and drowned in the relentlessly churning Atlantic.

Gloucester Police Chief Mike Lane told Belmont Patch that Nicholas V. Roussos, 67, of Garrison Road was knocked off  boulders overlooking the rough ocean near a religious retreat for Catholic priests known as Gonzaga Retreat.

Chief Lane said the case is official "under investigation" and Roussos' body  has been accepted by the state's Medical Examiner as his death was both unattended and a possible accident. 

Lane told Belmont Patch that yesterday Roussos asked his long time friend, Anastasios Christophilos of nearby Arthur Lane, if he wanted to go fishing.

The pair took off to the eastern end of Gloucester and parked their car on Niles Pond Road near the priest retreat at 2:30 p.m. Soon after situating themselves on the boulders near the waters edge, Lane said Christophilos went back to the car to retrieve his cell phone.

Suddenly he heard a large wave crash into the cropping and heard his friend yell out. When he turned back, Roussos was in the pounding ocean.

Gloucester Police received a 911 call of a fisherman swept off the rocks and into the sea. A 25 foot Coast Guard vessel arrived quickly, said Lane, and a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in a wet suit picked up Roussos near the rocks.

Roussos received CPR in the vessel and once he arrived at the Gloucester Coast Guard station. He was taken by ambulance to nearby Addison Gilbert Hospital but was pronounced dead.

"Basically, he was swept off the rocks and likely drowned due to the rough seas," said Lane.

Gloucester and other North Shore beaches and shore lines have been hit by powerful currents that has produced a pounding surf and dangerous riptides and undertows since Monday as Hurricane Earl – despite recently being downgraded from a Catagory 4 to a 3 in the past day – approaches the waters to the east of New England.

Yesterday, Gloucester closed its beaches to swimming beyond a person's waist as a precaution. Yet nearly 50 people needed assistance to reach shore.

"Stay away from the shoreline and know conditions are dangerous at the big beaches," said Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk in a media statement yesterday.