The swimming supervisor saw the child at the bottom of the only 1.28 metre deep pool for non-swimmers and reacted immediately. However, despite her efforts at reanimating the 5-year-old, it was too late and the child was later declared dead at the hospital.
The girl was from Syria and lived in Dortmund in Germany. She was visiting family and they were spending the day at the swimming baths. Both her family members and the pool supervisor received psychological support after the incident.
According to latest figures of the ‘Deutschen Lebensrettungsgesellschaft’, a relief organisation for life saving in Germany, 445 individuals have died in swimming pools in the first eight months of 2018 alone. 55 of those incidents occurred in North Rhine-Westphalia. Children and refugees are at a higher risk due to the common inability to swim.
