The girl who drowned Sunday at Pokai Beach Park was identified Monday as Gloria Eram, 11, a sixth-grader at Wahiawa Elementary School.
The girl and her sister, 9, both got into trouble in the water, but the younger girl was discovered first.
Emergency Medical Services officials said they were unaware a second child was missing in the ocean until she was found submerged a half-hour later.
Eram, who was in extremely critical condition, later died at a hospital, according to Honolulu Emergency Medical Services.
Her sister remained in critical condition Monday, said a relative in Wahiawa who asked not to be named.
The relative said the two girls might have been walking on a rock jetty to see how far they could get out into the bay. Somehow they ended up in the water unseen, the relative said.
The relative said the father was barbecuing at the time.
Beachgoers found the 9-year-old girl in shallow water just before noon.
As the girl was being put into an ambulance, paramedics used a public address system in their vehicle to locate the father, Emergency Medical Services spokeswoman Shayne Enright said.
Enright said paramedics had no indication from the father that another daughter — Gloria — was missing.
She said the father wasn’t talking to the paramedics.
"No one knew there was a second girl," Enright said.
A family friend, who declined to give her name and described the father as a good man, said the father was probably in shock at the time.
The girls were with their father at the same beach Saturday, and there was no reason to think they would get into trouble, a relative said.
Enright said the ocean was calm Sunday in Pokai Bay.
Two other people died from apparent drownings Sunday, both on Maui.
A 76-year-old man was found in calm waters about 10 feet from shore in Kapalua Bay, northwestern Maui.
A 73-year-old Pennsylvania man died of an apparent drowning in waters off Wailea Point, South Maui.
