Tributes have been paid to a British man who is believed to have drowned in Lake Garda in Italy after diving in to save his teenage son. Aran Chada, a 51-year-old sales director from Leicestershire, is thought to have had a seizure when he leapt from a boat into the water.
Mr Chada was reportedly on holiday with his partner, Holly Mosley, 39, and their children – a 14-year-old boy and a girl aged seven – and was due to celebrate his birthday on Tuesday. Neighbours in the village of Woodhouse Eaves, near Loughborough, spoke on Monday of their shock at hearing the news.
One man, who declined to give his name, said: “They have been part of the village for years. It is just very, very tragic.”
Another man, who has known the family many years, said it was “heart-breaking”. At their home in the village the blinds had been pulled closed.
The family had been on the lake in a rented boat on Friday when Mr Chada saw his son struggling in the water and jumped in to rescue him, according to The Times. The coastguard believes he may have suffered a thermal shock seizure. Temperatures were around 38C but the water was “a good 10 degrees colder”.
Coastguard commander Antonello Ragadale told the paper: “This man was a hero and we fear he drowned, but we’re doing everything we can to find his body. Divers arrived with the helicopters but could do little because a steep, rocky shelf descends to a great depth at that point.
“A civil protection agency remote control mini-sub was sent down and searched for the man until late into the night, but to no avail.”
According to his LinkedIn page, Mr Chada worked for Global Energy Ventures, a company that services oil fields in Africa. Mr Ragadale pledged to continue the search, which started again at dawn on Saturday, adding: “The father was very brave in what he did.
“He saw his child in danger and he did what any parent would do and tried to save them, which he did.”
The Foreign Office said in a statement: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has been reported missing in Italy and are in contact with the Italian police.”
His teenage son had got into difficulty whilst swimming in the lake and Mr Chada leapt into the lake to save him. He managed to drag the 14 year old back to the boat where his mum pulled him aboard, but then the sales director struggled for breath and slipped beneath the surface of Italy's largest lake, reported The Daily Mirror.
