THE FLAGLER TRIBUNE
Bunnell, Florida
Thursday, July 22, 1948
 
Doris Wynnell Johnson, five and a half year old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Johnson of Flagler Beach drowned in the surf at Flagler Beach about 3:30 this afternoon, after efforts of a crew of life guards from Daytona Beach with a pulmotor failed to revive the child.

There were no eyewitnesses to the drowning.

The Johnson child and several other small children had been playing in the edge of the surf, according to spectators at the beach. The group went out of the water and up onto the fishing pier but, apparently, Doris returned to the surf. Soon parents of some of the children began looking for theirs and located them. Then a search was begun for the Johnson child when the other small children said they did not know where she was.

Up on the pier was Miss Betty Babbitt and M. L. Johnson, Jr., cousin of the child, who began scanning the waves and sighted the body floating several hundred yards north, of the pier. They, with others, started for the spot, and Sisco Deen, a small boy, arrived first and pulled the Johnson child from the water, but the cousin carried it higher up on the beach.

Artificial respiration was given by a number of persons while a call to the Daytona Beach lifesaving corps brought a specially equipped truck with pulmotor to the scene. Meanwhile a doctor was called also. The pulmotor was used for nearly two hours and Dr. Calvin J. Hough of Daytona Beach administered stimulants but pronounced the child dead at 4:55.

The body was placed in charge of Baggett-McIntosh Funeral Home of Daytona Beach, but funeral arrangements were not completed.

Doris Wynnell is survived by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Philp Johnson and a sister, Sally, of Flagler Beach.

(NOTE: The Sisco Deen mentioned above, is the compiler of these obituaries from The Flagler Tribune - I was 8 years old at the time)