A woman died after struggling in the sea during a family holiday in Turkey. An inquest has been held into the death of 73-year-old Patricia Anne Thompson.
Last summer, she went on a trip to Bodrum, in the Mugla Province of Turkey, with her daughter Leanne Jones, Leanne’s partner and their three children.
In a statement read out to Crook Coroners’ Court on Wednesday, Leanne said: “It was mum who wanted to go to the beach on the fifth day of the holiday. We set up our stuff near some sunbeds and were sorting out one of our children, so mum went into the sea with the other two.
“I kept looking at them, and she must have only been about 15 metres away from us. About ten minutes later I saw her swimming, and then the next time I looked she was panicking, splashing about and going under the water, and it was clear when I reached her that she had swallowed loads of water.
“She was vomiting water, and the waiters from the beachside bar got her out and started doing CPR. We were all shell-shocked, but the staff at the doctor’s surgery next door called an ambulance and she was taken to hospital.
“We were told that she needed to go to the ITU, and around three hours later we were told that she had died. I think that she panicked because she couldn’t reach the bottom, as she was always a good swimmer and had been in the pool for the first part of the holiday.”
A post mortem examination, conducted by Dr James Henry at the Newcastle Freeman Hospital Mortuary on November 9, 2024, gave the medical cause of death as ‘immersion in water’.
The court heard there was no evidence of Patricia’s death being caused by anything else.
Jeremy Chipperfield, senior assistant coroner for County Durham and Darlington, concluded Patricia, from Hartlepool, died an ‘accidental death’.
He said: “On August 17, 2024, Patricia became distressed and panicked while swimming in the sea at Bodrum, Turkey.”
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View news Source: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/grandmother-died-sea-bodrum-turkey-31107819
