A teenager who tried to save a drowning bride at Snorkel Park told last night how she prayed as she struggled to find a pulse.

Brittney Robinson, 17, from St. George's, rushed to help Ting Chen when the 28-year-old New Yorker was pulled out of the water at the Dockyard beach last Thursday while on her honeymoon.

But she and others who battled to save the young teacher's life were unsuccessful and Mrs. Chen was later declared dead in hospital. An autopsy has revealed the cause of death as drowning.

Brittney, a student at the Berkeley Institute, told The Royal Gazette she was relaxing with her family when she heard a commotion from the water.

"One moment everyone was just swimming and having fun," she said. "All of a sudden we hear people yelling and screaming 'help! help!'. We ran onto the beach very quickly and I saw that it was something serious. They had put her on this mattress and brought her to the beach. Everybody reacted quickly. Everybody cooperated."

The quick-thinking teen, who hopes to become a forensic scientist, immediately offered to perform CPR but ended up assisting a qualified nurse who came forward.

"I helped by trying to get a pulse from her and assisting them telling them what to do as we waited for the EMS (emergency medical services) to arrive," she said. "I didn't panic at all. I was taught CPR in school. She needed help. I never moved until they took her away."

She added: "There was no pulse from the time we began. I was hoping and praying the whole time. I prayed 'hopefully she will come back' but there was nothing more for us to do. I knew she was gone. It was such a sad moment. It's so sad that she lost her life."

Brittney said the bride — who was visiting the Island on the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship and been married less than a week to husband Ron when the tragedy occurred — did not appear to have been wearing a life jacket.

Brittney's sister Janelle Simons, 30, said she dialled 911 after getting her four-year-old son and six-year-old niece out of the water.

"I saw them when they were working on her," she said. "They were working on her and working on her. I felt so bad for her husband. He was just saying 'please help me, please help me'."

Mother-of-three Mrs. Simons said she had seen Mrs. Chen go into the water earlier wearing a life jacket and could not understand why she had taken it off. "It's pretty sad," she said. "It's amazing how quickly something like that can happen."

The sisters have both posted messages this week, along with Premier Ewart Brown, on an internet page paying tribute to Mrs. Chen.

Dr. Brown wrote: "On behalf of the people of Bermuda, I offer my sincere condolences to Ting's family and friends. I have read the tributes left on this Facebook group and I can see she was loved and will be missed. She is in our thoughts and prayers."

Coroner's officer Lee-Roma Swan told The Royal Gazette that a post-mortem had revealed drowning as the cause of death and that an inquest would be held.

A memorial service for Mrs. Chen will be held on Saturday morning at the Long Island Abundant Life Church in Hicksville, New York, where her husband is youth pastor.