A MAN who was dragged from the sea before undergoing resuscitation in front of a packed beach has died.

A frantic search was launched off the beach near Hove Lawns after the man, who was in his mid-50s, was spotted collapsed in the water.

But despite the alarm being raised just before 4.30pm on Saturday, it was almost 20 minutes before he was dragged onto the beach.

Emergency crews then spent close to half an hour trying to revive the man in front of shocked onlookers. He died later at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

The alarm was raised by a friend of the man close to the western end of Hove Lawns.

Eyewitnesses described distressing scenes as beach lifeguards struggled to locate him while his shocked friends desperately tried to direct the search from the shore.

The lifeguard team painstakingly dived along the sea floor in a co-ordinated search before eventually locating the man within metres of the beach.

The exact details of how the man, who was fully clothed in jeans and a T-shirt, got into difficulty are still unclear, but it is thought he suffered a heart attack at the water’s edge.

Eyewitness Darren Sherlock, from Hove, said: “It seems incredible that right there in front of all these people looking for him that he remained under the water for that long and there was nothing anybody could do.

“He was between two lifeguard flags and he wasn’t swimming far out. He was in the safest place, so it seems like it was just a really unfortunate series of events.”