Man swimming with children drowned after stopping suddenly

A man suddenly stopped swimming and drowned while out in Wicklow Harbour with his two young children, an inquest heard.

Peter McDonough (45) from Edenbrook Manor in Rathfarnham, Dublin 14, was not breathing when he was pulled from the water in the early evening of Sunday, July 21st last year. He was resuscitated but died the following day.

Dublin Coroner’s Court heard from his father Maurice McDonough that Peter had been staying with him and his wife in the family’s holiday home at Brittas Bay for the weekend along with his son Dylan (8) and daughter Charlie (6).

At about 4.30pm Peter left the house with the two children to go to the harbour.

“He absolutely adored his children and he was off to go swimming with them. That was the last we saw of him,” said Mr McDonough.

The incident happened as he swam out to a raft in the middle of the harbour with Dylan and Charlie. Bystanders told the lifeguard on duty, Katie O’Neill, that he suddenly stopped swimming. Mr McDonough told the coroner that Dylan had told them the same thing.

Ms O’Neill first spotted something was wrong at around 5.20pm when she saw Dylan and Charlie too far out in the water for children of their age.

“I started making my way to the shoreline to ask them to come in but as I was going down I heard them shout ‘help’ so I started running,” she said.

It was a sunny day and the beach was “quite busy” at the time with Ms O’Neill estimating that around 200 or more people were there. She said she grabbed the kayak and started paddling toward the children as fast as she could. It took her about 30 seconds to reach them once she was in the water, she said.

“There were another three kayaks out on the water and one these had taken the two children onto the back. I heard them say ‘something happened to Daddy’ and I spotted him face down in the water,” she said.

Another man got to Mr McDonough before her and pulled him out of the water onto a kayak. She turned him over and found that he was not breathing. “I started deep water resuscitation. At some point around this time I shouted for an ambulance to be called,” she said.

As she towed Mr McDonough back to shore, he expelled water and foam came from his mouth. CPR was continued on shore and a pulse was retrieved.

He was airlifted to Tallaght Hospital where he was admitted to intensive care on arrival, however, he never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead the following day, July 22nd.

The inquest heard that no witnesses came forward to gardaí­ who saw what happened prior to Ms O’Neill beginning the rescue. Ms O’Neill said she did not see Mr McDonough struggling in the water when she first spotted the children.

The family told the court that Mr McDonough was in good health prior to the incident.

The post-mortem was carried out by pathologist Dr Clare D’Arcy. She said that death was by drowning but she found no evidence of heart disease and it cannot be said definitively whether or not Mr McDonough suffered a cardiac event prior to the incident.

She told the family that it is not possible at post-mortem to detect if someone has suffered a cardiac arrhythmia. There was no evidence of aneurysm in the brain.

Coroner Dr Brian Farrell returned a verdict of accidental death.