Three members of the same family drowned on Christmas Eve at a holiday resort on the Costa del Sol in Spain when the father and brother of a 9-year-old girl tried to save her as she struggled in a swimming pool, according to reports.
The British girl got into difficulties in the pool at the sprawling resort of Club La Costa World in Las Lagunas de Mijas near Málaga, overlooking the Mediterranean, about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to the UK’s Mirror.
Her 52-year-old dad and 16-year-old brother, who apparently is a US citizen, also drowned after jumping in the pool to try and save her, according to the report. None of the victims have yet been identified.
The children’s mother prayed for her family as another tourist performed CPR, according to The Sun.
“She was calm. She was touching their bodies. She continued praying even after the ambulance people arrived and had stopped trying to revive them,” said Josias Fletchman, 35, of Manchester, the newspaper reported.
“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,” he added.
A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman said: “We are offering assistance to a British woman following an incident in Spain.”
Police divers were inspecting the swimming pool, including the pump, after the accident as part of the investigation.
Sur, a local newspaper, suggested that the deaths may have been caused by a failure in the pool’s suction system, according to Agence France-Presse.
Resort officials said they have been told there was no malfunction in the pool’s circulation system, The Sun reported.
The management offered its “heartfelt condolences.”
“The guests were found unresponsive in one of the resort’s pools. First response teams and emergency services attended and administered first aid,” it said in a statement, the Guardian reported.
“The management are assisting the authorities fully with their investigation into the deaths. We would like to thank our first response team and the emergency services for their quick and appropriate responses and our staff for the continuing support of the family at this difficult time.”
A local journalist, Fernando Torres, described the shocking scene.
“The resort workers heard the screaming and they tried to do CPR as well, but they couldn’t help them,” he told the BBC. “Then the emergency doctors came and they tried for 30-35 minutes, but they couldn’t revive them.”
British tourist Tanya Aamer, 23, told the PA news agency she saw the family members’ bodies covered in white sheets by the side of the pool.
“The atmosphere as I was walking past is indescribable,” she said. “Obviously we’ve never been in that situation before so we kind just began walking slowly in a slight state of confusion as to what we’re witnessing and eventually when we got to the bottom it was just silent, no talking or anything.”
The bodies were transferred to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Malaga, where they will undergo autopsies.
The resort is the same one where another 9-year-old British girl, Habiba Chishti, died in February after suffering a severe allergic reaction to ice cream, according to The Sun.
The girl had been staying with her family at the resort and went into anaphylactic shock there, though she had eaten her treat at a nearby shopping center.
