Drowned Sailor Derek Lovelace's Kin Demand Answers From Navy SEALs

[TomSea]

Drowned Sailor Derek Lovelace's Kin Demand Answers From Navy SEALs
This story was prepared in partnership with The Virginian-Pilot.

DESTIN, Fla. — From the moment Lynsi Price absorbed the crushing news that her younger brother had drowned while training to become a Navy SEAL, she struggled to understand how such a thing could happen.

For two years she had watched James "Derek" Lovelace prepare for the grueling SEALs basic training course — swimming, running and weightlifting in the Florida coastal town where they grew up. He was a great swimmer, a strong athlete. How could he have died in the first week, during a pool drill designed to test basic water competence?

"I knew in my heart that something wasn't done right," Price, 24, told NBC News in a tearful interview. "Because he would have made it."

Navy officials assured the family it was a freak accident, perhaps complicated by hidden medical issues, she said. Price and her father, James Lovelace, an Iraq war veteran, came to believe what they were told by men in uniform, she said.

See More At: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/drowned-sailor-derek-lovelace-s-kin-demand-answers-navy-seals-n621011