When the absence of any lifeguards, or anyone with CPR skills, was a significant factor in the boy’s death
What happened?
A 6 year-old boy was with his parents and three siblings at Red Lion Holiday Park in Arbroath in June 2011. The park was owned and operated by Loch Earn Caravan Parks and had a leisure centre with a swimming pool. They went for a swim shortly after arriving.
The boy was a non-swimmer, and was playing with his brother in the toddler pool while his mum swam in the main pool. There were no lifeguards. The boy was 1.16m tall, and made his way from the toddler pool to the 1.2m deep main pool with a pool noodle (long tube) under his arm. As he held on to the pool edge the tube floated away from him. He reached out to grab it but missed, causing his head and body to go underwater. This was not noticed by anyone else at the pool at that time.
The CCTV captured the boy going underwater for 51 seconds at which point his brother became aware and pulled his head above the surface. His brother alerted his mum who entered the water and lifted him onto poolside.
Aidan was not breathing and a male guest who was using the pool at the time performed CPR. The staff were not trained in CPR.
Paramedics were able to resuscitate the boy at the scene before taking him to hospital still in a critical condition. He had suffered neurological damage caused by the time he spent submerged underwater. The injuries Aidan sustained resulted in his death four days later.
The joint investigation by Angus Council and the Police concluded that no risk assessment was done, little consideration had been given to potential risks, there was inadequate supervision in the pool and staff received no adequate safety training. The presence of a lifeguard on duty at the poolside would have reduced the likelihood of the incident occurring and this failure was a significant factor in the incident and the resulting tragic death of the boy.
Legal Outcome
In the July 2016 court case, Loch Earn Caravan Parks pleaded guilty and was fined £234,000. The family filed a successful claim for £50,000.
What can we learn from what happened?
There is no mention in the report to the dimensions of the pool, but given the repeated references to the absence of a lifeguard, and no reference to guidance that may suggest that a lifeguard is not required, the pool probably exceeded the size when the guidance advises that lifeguarding is required. This is bad enough, but when there are no lifeguards, for the caravan park to then have no staff with CPR training is terrible, and demonstrates that they really had not considered the safety implications of opening a pool to the public.
The level of supervision of young and non-swimmers provided by parents and guardians is always a factor, but it seems the caravan park over-relied on this control.
The pool is now closed due to financial and operational pressures.
Source of Information
Water Incident Research Hub