4-year-old Brit dies in Egypt, family blame resort

[DJKeefy]

A four-year old British girl has drowned in a swimming pool whilst on a family holiday to Egypt after slipping, banging her head and then falling into the water.

Skia Watson was staying at the Seagull Beach Resort in Hurghada when the tragedy happened. Her parents have blamed the resort for having only one lifeguard watching the large pool, and for his lack of first aid skills – witnesses say he took Skia out of the pool and gave her to someone else to perform CPR.



The news will further damage Egypt’s tourism sector, which has been rocked by a series of deaths blamed on the negligence of Egyptian hotels and medical workers and exacerbated by the response of Egyptian authorities.

Last year a British couple died within hours of each other at a five-star hotel in Hurghada. They were said to be in perfect health before their holiday.

Their daughter, Kelly Ormerod, said that police suggested to her that her mother had died of grief and that she was forced to sign a statement in Arabic.

Earlier this year a court in the UK heard that they had been exposed to an infectious biological agent or toxic chemicals in their hotel room despite Egyptian authorities previously blaming their deaths on natural causes.

British authorities have not been able to retrieve their medical reports from Egypt, or the details of meetings between the country’s ministers of foreign affairs and tourism, which could help establish the cause of death.

A week later, Kent school teacher Alison Sonnex died during a holiday at the Royal Tulip Hotel in Marsa Alam. Her death was recorded as “heart failure” by Egyptian authorities.

Sonnex’s husband Clive Eversfield told the Daily Mail: “I do not accept that my wife died of natural causes. She was only 54 and fit and healthy – there is no reason why she should have died… I feel like what happened when my wife died is being covered up in some way, as appears to be happening now with this case.”

The Royal Tulip Hotel is part of the Tulip Hotel group owned by the Egyptian Army.

Source: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190 ... me-resort/

[HEPZIBAH]

It's always sad when a child dies, but the poorly written article really does not give much information. In fact, all it does is raise questions.
To blame the resort for the lack of staff and first aide skills, is probably natural. However it does not state where the parents where when this happened, and it is easy to question their parenting skills - supervision, first aide etc. too.
I just hope the child did not suffer too much before she passed away.

[carrie]

It seems as though no one is prepared to accept responsibility for their children nowadays. A four year old child should not be left unsupervised by their parents in a swimming pool.
If children misbehave at school then it's the teachers fault, not the parents lack of parenting skills.
I am very sorry for this family and regret the child's death. Children's safety, however, is the responsibility of the parents first and fore most.

[crewmeal]

Agreed with the previous posts. It begs the question of what the parents were doing at the time. It's all very well blaming the one lifeguard, how many do they need? How big is the pool? I've stayed at hotels across the globe when there was normally only one on duty and in some cases none. Some of these pools are huge.

I hope this doesn't degenerate to 'where there's a blame there is a claim' compensation through a tour operator.

[HEPZIBAH]

Sadlly,we are in an age where blame has to be instantly given out despite the lack of facts. This is one of the reasons J consider the news article poorly written as the only real fact is that the child has died.

Could it not be the case that, in fact there is no one to blame? Even under the best supervision, accidents can and do hapoen. Young children are fast and can quickly get out of arms reach and into harms way.
That no one seemed to be capeable of appropriate first aide is a seperate matter. (Bearing in mind that first aide is genenerally lacking throughout the country anyway. )

[carrie]

Of course accidents can happen, those of us with children know that only too well, I doubt there is one person who hasn't been to A and E with one of their kids.
In my children's primary school playground there was a beautiful old oak tree. Suddenly a notice appears on the tree, no climbing. That had to be changed to a more symbolic form of warning, for those who could not read. Then a metal fence appeared round the tree, eventually it was cut down.
Kids have climbed tree for years and fallen out of them. Some have sustained serious injuries but whose fault is it.
It's not the trees, take responsibility for your children, stop looking for someone to blame when things go wrong. No wonder society is in such a terrible mess. No one is prepared to say it was MY fault.

[hatusu]

It must be particularly hard to accept you are responsible for your own child's death. You HAVE to blame someone else to be able to live with the consequences.........

[Horus]

Very true Hatusu, the case of another missing little girl springs to mind.