In a terrible incident outside of his Martha's Vineyard house, former US president Barack Obama lost his personal chef.
According to reports, 45-year-old Tafari Campbell drowned while paddleboarding on a pond.continue Reading.
According to the officials, the body was found on Monday afternoon in 8 feet of water around 100 feet from the Obamas' house on Edgartown Great Pond.
As Barack Obama's personal staff after his stint in office, Campbell had previously served as the White House kitchen's sous chef.
Emergency services were called to the 30-acre estate at 79 Turkeyland Cove Road following reports of a "possible drowning" in the water nearby, on Sunday evening.
Divers, helicopters from the Coast Guard, and personnel from other agencies participated in the rescue operations that were started from the property overnight.
Eventually, sonar scanners launched from a boat about 10 a.m. on Monday helped locate Campbell's body.
Police confirmed that the Obamas were not home at the time of the incident.
The Obamas released a statement on Monday, stating that "Tafari was a beloved part of our family."
He was a skilled sous chef at the White House when we first met him. He was imaginative and passionate about food and its capacity to unite people. We got to know him as a pleasant, jovial, incredibly kind person who made all of our lives a little bit brighter during the years that followed.
Because of this, we begged Tafari to join us as we left the White House, and he graciously accepted. Since then, he has been a part of our lives, and his passing has shattered our hearts.
"Today we join everyone who knew and loved Tafari in mourning the loss of a truly wonderful man, especially his wife Sherise and their twin boys, Xavier and Savin."
Another paddleboarder who was on the pond at the time Campbell perished claimed to have seen him struggling in the water before disappearing beneath the surface and drowning.
Then, he was dressed entirely in black and did not wear a life jacket.
He was found with his board and cap not long after search teams arrived.
