A Michigan woman who drowned in Hawaii earlier this month was afraid of water, her son told the Ann Arbor News.

Donna Moran, 60, of Saline, Mich., was standing in a few inches of water at Pebble Beach in South Kona on April 7 when she was struck by a wave and swept into the ocean.

Moran's son, Scott Taylor of Chicago, told the newspaper his mother had remarked how dangerous the ocean could be following a boating accident in the Gulf of Mexico in which three men, two of them NFL players, died.

Taylor says his mother "was as careful as she could be."

Kelly Moran says her mother was afraid of water and of flying, but still took a flight to Hawaii.