A 27-Year-Old TikToker Died After Falling Off A Lighthouse Cliff & He Was Shooting A Video
His family is trying to bring him home from Puerto Rico.
Edgar "Chuwey" Garay. Right: A lighthouse at Cabo Rojo in Puerto Rico.
Friends and family of TikToker Edgar Garay are asking for help with getting his body home from Puerto Rico, after he fell off a cliff while shooting content for the social media platform.
Garay, 27, was last seen alive last Sunday evening at the iconic Cabo Rojo lighthouse in Puerto Rico, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. He slipped over the edge and went into the water, which led to a major search of the area.
Coast Guard officials ultimately found his body the next day.
“We express our most heartfelt condolences to the family and loved ones of Edgar Garay and pray they find closure and strength during this most difficult time,” Capt. José E. Díaz, Coast Guard Sector San Juan commander said in a news release.
Garay lived in Columbus, Indiana, but he was visiting Puerto Rico at the time of his death.
Now his brother, Carlos Garay, is asking for help to fly the body home.
"I love and miss my brother so much already," Carlos wrote on his Facebook page, where he mourned the brother he called "Chuwey."
"Please help my family and I bring Chuwey home so that his friends and our family can have proper closure and lay him to rest near home, and not hundreds of miles away."
The family is asking for US $8,500 in donations via GoFundMe.
Carlos says Edgar was in Puerto Rico with their cousin, and the cousin kept telling him not to get so close to the edge of the lighthouse cliff.
"My brother has a TikTok account that he loved to upload videos to," Carlos told Indiana broadcaster WTHR. "Unfortunately, that was what he was trying to do when he was closer to the edge than he should have been."
He added that their cousin didn't see the moment when Edgar Garay went over the edge. Instead, he started walking away and when he looked back, Edgar was simply gone.
Carlos added that while Edgar was born in Puerto Rico, the family feels like that's not where he should be laid to rest.
"He's not very well known over there," Carlos said. "For him to be laid and his final resting place somewhere miles upon miles away from here is just awful and devastating."