Eyewitnesses described a tragedy on Bournemouth beach that left two children dead as “like a horror movie”.
A 12-year-old girl and 17-year-old boy suffered “critical” injuries in a fatal incident that occurred next to Bournemouth Pier on Wednesday afternoon.
Police arrested a man in his 40s who was “on the water” at the time on suspicion of manslaughter and investigations to establish exactly what happened are ongoing.
RNLI lifeguards rushed into the sea to rescue eight other children who were at risk of being swept away by a sudden and strong undercurrent. An 18-year-old swimmer spotted the 12-year-old girl floating in the sea and helped recover her to the beach where she was given CPR.
The lifeless body of the 17-year-old boy was then spotted close to the shoreline and lifeguards and an ambulance crew attempted to save him. The casualties were both airlifted to hospital where they were later pronounced dead.
According to witnesses, there were no obvious injuries on either victim and police have confirmed that there was no physical contact between them and any vessel. Police have also said there is nothing to suggest anyone involved was jumping from the pier.
Nicola Holton, 43, and Stuart Clark, 42, were on the beach with their two children when the tragedy unfolded shortly after 4pm yesterday. They said the scene turned into something from “a horror film.”
Mr Clark said: "There were announcements throughout the afternoon telling people not to climb on the pier. After 2pm it seemed like people weren’t going near it.
"The next announcement we got was at 4pm about a dangerous riptide in the water and it wasn’t soon after that we saw a couple of swimmers in trouble out to sea.
"It got really chaotic when they brought a young man back to shore on a lifeguard jet ski. It was obvious he wasn’t alive. That’s when people started gathering around and the lifeguards were trying to clear the beach at the same time as helping the others in the water.
"We saw the young girl get brought out too and there were no obvious injuries on her either. I just wanted to get my family off the beach."
Miss Holton said: "It was like a scene from a horror film. After an afternoon of lovely weather and the odd announcement to tell kids to stop climbing on the pier it looked like it had all settled down.
"When we first spotted the swimmers in distress they were far out to the east side of the pier.
"A lifeguard ran into the water with a surfboard and it seemed to take ages for him to get to them. There was an announcement to get out of the water and then the lifeguards started bringing people back to shore.
"A few were taken to the lifeguard tent and then we saw the young man and girl brought out. We were packing up our things to leave as quickly as we could. It was just awful.
"There were loads of idiots ignoring lifeguard requests to get out of the water and clear the beach. People were running towards those having CPR filming on their phones."
The first person to reach the girl who died was an 18-year-old boy.
His father, Rob Creech, said: "My son was on the other side of the pier swimming with a few friends.
"All of a sudden there were a lot of people on the pier shouting and screaming that there was somebody in the water. He swam to the other side of the pier and he found a young girl floating face down in the water.
"The emergency services were just arriving at the beach so he was shouting to them and scooped her up to swim to shore. He managed to get her out onto the beach and the emergency services took it from there."
Detective Chief Superintendent Neil Corrigan, of Dorset Police, said: “Our thoughts are with the loved ones of the young people who tragically died and we are doing all we can to support their families.
“I understand the beach was very busy at the time of the incident and I would ask anyone with information that may assist our enquiries to please come forward.
“We are at the early stages of our investigation and would ask people not to speculate about the circumstances surrounding the incident.”
Anyone with information is asked to submit it via https://mipp.police.uk/operation/55HQ23M93-PO1.
