Parents call for urgent safety review after swimming pool tragedies

Families of children involved in holiday swimming pool accidents are demanding action be taken to improve safety.

A Sunday Post probe has discovered one British child a month drowns while abroad. Dozens more suffer serious injuries in pool accidents. At least two deaths every summer are blamed on poor supervision at pools and a lack of on-duty lifeguards.

Now, affected parents are pleading for stricter security measures to be put in place for British tourists.

They say the grim accident statistics, which suggest as many as 110 kids have drowned in holiday pools overseas in the last 10 years, only prove appropriate action isn’t being taken to ensure pool-side safety.

Among them are Kate Miller and Steven Simpson, whose four-year-old daughter Cally, from Arbroath, has been fighting for her life since being found unconscious at the bottom of a swimming pool in Salou three weeks ago.

At the time of Cally’s accident, one lifeguard was on patrol covering the Hotel Villamarina’s two pools. Because they are 30 metres apart and divided by trees and bushes, neither can be seen clearly from the other, meaning one pool is always without direct supervision.

Steven said: “I completely disagree with the hotel only having one lifeguard covering both. That’s an impossible job. Every way you look at it, it’s wrong.”

Demands are also being made for investigations to be performed on every resort where a child has landed in danger. Lynda Smith’s daughter Holly was only three when she was pulled from an unguarded hotel pool in Majorca in 2006.

She said: “Holly was rescued from the deep end of the adult’s pool by another hotel guest. There were no lifeguards anywhere.

“That was eight years ago and there have been far too many deaths between then and now. Why have no lessons been learned?”

The Motherwell mum has stopped holidaying abroad since Holly’s accident.

She said: “The majority of these hotels and complexes do not have the lifeguard cover that we require back here, with many having none at all. If lessons had been learned from the hundreds of fatalities and near-misses over the last decade, then little Cally wouldn’t be where she is just now.

She added: “The travel agents need to take responsibility. If hotels don’t meet certain safety standards then they should be closed until they do.”

Figures supplied by the Association of British Travel Agents and the Royal Life Saving Society show that five kids from the UK died in foreign swimming pools last year.

However, that number is significantly below the annual average of 11 for each of the last 10 years.

In addition, up to 600 a year suffered serious swimming pool accidents.

Our inquiry found a whole catalogue of heartbroken families blasting resorts for what they considered serious failures in their duty of care.

Wigan couple Gavin Aspinall and Emma Hollingsworth’s two-year-old son Loui was found drowned in the pool at Tunisia’s Houda Golf and Beach Resort in October last year. His parents have since started a petition to ensure lifeguard cover at all pools offered to holiday-makers by British travel firms.

Speaking after an inquiry into their son’s death, they said: “You expect that lifeguards are guaranteed, but they are not. Many people don’t think that lifeguards won’t be there. It’s not law and that’s what we are trying to change it. People need to learn from these mistakes.”

The O’Neill family from Lanarkshire claimed there was inadequate lifeguard cover at their Tenerife hotel when Lara Marie, 3, drowned in July 2004. And in May last year, it was left to another British holiday-maker to rescue Fife toddler Callum Salmond from the pool at the Voyage Belek five-star hotel in Turkey. The three-year-old, from Fife, passed away days later.

The RLSS confirmed there is currently no European standard for pool safety. A spokesperson for ABTA, who govern travel agents working in the UK, said: “ABTA advises that all parents should ensure they read pool rules before they swim and remember not all holiday accommodation will employ lifeguards. Even if a lifeguard is present, they are not a substitute for proper supervision.”

Foreign Office chief Ruth Stannard said: “Every year British consulates around the world see water safety incidents involving British nationals, including injuries and deaths in pools. It’s important to understand and follow the relevant safety advice and not to rely on lifeguards, who may not always be present.”

Martin Symcox, of International Lifeguarding Qualifications UK, said: “When travelling abroad it is always extremely important to understand what lifeguard cover, if any, there is at the resort you are travelling to, both around the pool and at the beach. It is also important to remember that lifeguards abroad may not be trained to the same standards as those at home.”