MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WPDE) — A group of good Samaritans tried to save a beached whale along the coast of Myrtle Beach State Park on Thursday.
Many onlookers gathered around to witness the rare occurrence and some told WPDE they thought it was a dolphin at first.
Gina Towne, Vinnie Teress and Rich Stankye were visiting from out of town and were part of the effort to try and save the whale.
They're all strangers and don't know one another but said once they saw it come ashore, they immediately came together.
We started congregating around with the help of a couple of other people to corral it and keep it in the water so it didn't beach itself," Rich Stankye, from Connecticut, said.They said they emerged themselves into the water with the whale, trying to push it back into the ocean.
"We're corralling it, pushing it out, and for a while there it looked like it was going to take off, it started swimming out, but then it circled right back in again," Stankye said.
They said they tried to push it back into the water for an hour, but unable to fight the waves, it kept coming back to shore.
“I’m going to say it was probably a mile down the beach ‘till it ended up here," Stankye said.
Despite the attempt, the whale unfortunately died.
"Hey, we tried," Stankye said.
We gave it our best," Vinnie Teress, from New York, said.Officials said it was either a Pygmy sperm whale or a juvenile sperm whale; however, it's not yet confirmed.
They said something was wrong with the whale and that's why it kept beaching itself.
Officials said they don't yet know why it died but they did say it didn't look like it was attacked by anything.
The whale was taken to Charleston by a marine expert who will determine the cause of death.
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