Costa Del Sol deaths: Divers find drowned Brit girl’s swimming cap in pool pump & probe if family was sucked under water
POLICE divers have discovered the swimming cap of the British girl who drowned with her dad and brother in their Costa del Sol holiday pool, it emerged today.
The cap was found in the pool pump system by investigators as they probed if the three members of the same family were sucked under water.
The discovery comes amid speculation that suction problems turned the pool into a death trap, respected local paper Diario Sur reported.
It is believed the problems could have made it impossible for the little girl’s brother and father to reach the surface after they jumped in to save her.
Autopsies performed at Malaga’s Institute of Forensic Medicine have confirmed the girl, nine, her 16-year-old brother and their 62-year-old father all drowned on Christmas Eve.
But the exact circumstances of their deaths remained a mystery this morning as resort chiefs said they had been given permission to reopen the pool at the Club La Costa World complex near Fuengirola.
They insisted a police investigation had found “no concerns” with it.
It has been claimed the family could have died due to a temporary suction problem caused by a freak event which had nothing to do with any pool anomalies or problems resort chiefs could have foreseen.
The nine-year-old girl was swimming with her sister, 12, on December 24 when the tragedy unfolded.
The sister then raised the alarm, with her dad and son jumping into the water in a vain attempt to save her.
On Wednesday a witness told how the mum, believed to be from London, “stayed calm” and prayed by their bodies to try to will them back to life as he performed CPR with resort staff on the three tourists.
Dad-of-three Josias Fletchman, from Manchester, said in a moving account of how he tried to save them: “The mum was praying for them to come back to life.
“She was calm. She was touching their bodies. She continued praying even after the ambulance people arrived and had stopped trying to revive them.
“She exercised her faith to the limit. I was performing CPR on her husband but I’m a believer and I prayed as well.
“She strengthened me in the way she reacted. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
During the post-mortem, police found no signs of external injuries, or evidence they had been poisoned.
Late last night resort chiefs said the Civil Guard, the police force leading the investigation into the triple tragedy, had given them permission to reopen the pool which is one of several on the sprawling holiday complex but was being little used because it was not heated like some others.
Resort operator CLC World Resorts and Hotels put out a statement which said: “All at Club La Costa World resort are devastated by the tragedy that unfolded on Christmas Eve where a father and his two children were found unresponsive in a swimming pool and despite the best efforts of our first response team and the emergency services, could not be revived.
“The Guardia Civil have carried out a full investigation which found no concerns relating to the pool in question or procedures in place, which leaves us to believe this was a tragic accident which has left everyone surrounding the incident in shock.
“Naturally our primary concern remains the care and support of the remaining family members.
“We would therefore request that their privacy be respected at this traumatic time.”
They also confirmed the Civil Guard had authorised the reopening of the pool in what will be seen as a clear sign police feel there is no risk to bathers of a repeat of the Christmas Eve horror.
It is understood the pool’s skimmers and pumps were tested and found to be working perfectly.
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Civil Guard investigators have yet to make any official comment on the swimming cap find, made by specialist police divers mobilised after the alarm was raised around 1.30pm on Christmas Eve when the scale of the tragedy became clear.
Local media reports say a resort worker who dived into the water to recover the three bodies has said he had also experienced difficulties reaching the surface and exiting the pool.
A pool expert quoted by Diario Sur described as “very remote” but not impossible a situation in which pool drains on the pool floor could become dangerous and suck people underwater if skimmers and other cleaners stopped working.
In 2009 British schoolboy Nathan Clark drowned at a Thai water park after apparently being sucked into a pool’s pumping system.
Counsellors are now comforting the widowed mum affected by the latest pool tragedy and her survivor daughter.
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Relatives have flown from the UK to be by their side.
Well-placed sources said the teenage son who drowned was travelling on an American passport but described her husband and nine-year-old girl as British passport holders.
An FCO spokesperson said after news of the tragedy emerged: “We are offering assistance to a British woman following an incident in Spain.”