A FIVE-YEAR-OLD boy on a weekend break in Killarney with his parents and younger sibling died after he got into difficulties in a hotel swimming pool on the morning he was due to go back to Dublin, the inquest into his death heard yesterday in Tralee.
A lifeguard had pulled him from about 4ft of water in the adult pool at the Aquila Leisure centre of the Gleneagle Hotel and huge efforts to revive him were made, the inquest was told.
There was evidence from a number of lifeguards at the centre and from the boy’s father.
Dr Margot Bolster, who carried out a postmortem, found no evidence of head injury. She found the cause of death to be acute cardiorespiratory failure due to drowning, she told the inquest.
The jury in the inquest into the death of Tadgh Fannin, Bellcare Park, Poppintree, Ballymun, Dublin, returned a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence of death due to acute cardio failure due to drowning on July 18th, 2011. He had died at Kerry General Hospital where he had been brought by ambulance from the pool, the inquest was told.
Extending her sympathy to the parents and family of the boy, Coroner Helen Lucey noted the family had come for a weekend break, and Tadgh was learning to swim.
“It was a very unfortunate tragedy, and you have my deepest sympathy,” Ms Lucey said.
Garda Supt Jim O’Connor thanked the staff of the Aquila Centre, who he said had made every effort to save the child.
A consultant in Kerry General Hospital gave evidence that the child was in cardiac arrest after getting into difficulty, and that he did not respond to medical intervention. At 12.48pm he was pronounced dead in the hospital.
Eamon Quigley, the centre’s manager, extended his sympathy to the family on behalf of the hotel staff.
In a deposition read to the inquest by Supt O’Connor, the boy’s father Owen Fannin said he and his wife Karianne and their two children Tadgh and Feidhlin (15 months) had arrived at the Gleneagle Hotel with friends the previous Friday, and had gone swimming every day.
On Monday, July 18th, they were due to go home, and he brought Tadgh swimming at about 10.30am and brought him into the baby pool. “Tadgh loved the water,” Mr Fannin said. He played with his son in the baby pool, and then brought him into the shallow end of the big pool, where the boy was using a small float.
“I was telling him he did a great job,” Mr Fannin said. They sat together on the steps “and he gave me a hug and told me he loved me”, Mr Fannin said.
Tadgh went back into the baby pool and Mr Fannin went into the big pool, where he swam two lengths. When he went back to the baby pool he could not find Tadgh and he began searching the changing rooms, asking people whether they had seen a child.
“I thought someone had taken him,” Mr Fannin said. He returned to the pool to find staff performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Tadgh.
“I wish I had never had that swim and that there was better separation between the baby pool and the adult pool,” Mr Fannin said.
The jury extended their deepest sympathy to the family.