A swimmer suffered a hypoxic blackout and lay at the bottom of a leisure centre pool for more than five minutes while two lifeguards stood chatting at the side, a jury heard on Thursday.
The Newry Crown Court jury of four men and eight women heard that Christopher Rodgers was swimming lengths underwater at Orchard Leisure Centre in Armagh on April 7th, 2017, when the 20-year-old died from oxygen starvation.
On trial facing a single count each that being an employee, they were in breach of their duty to others and “failed to take reasonable care for the health and safety of other people who may be affected by your acts or omissions at work” are; Cathal Forrest-McVeigh (35), from Dunamony Road in Dungannon; William Holden (26), from Unshinagh Lane in Portadown and James Monaghan (26), from Folly Lane in Armagh.
Opening the Crown case prosecuting KC Liam McCollum told the jury that “rather uniquely” in this case they would see what happened as most of the incident had been captured by CCTV.
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Four CCTV clips were played for the jury after the senior barrister explained how they would see that after Rodgers had swam two lengths of the pool underwater, he was midway through a third length when “he pushed off the bottom, his head came above the water and then he sank to the bottom of the pool”.
As Rodgers lay at the bottom of the pool, Mr McVeigh and Mr Monaghan were recorded chatting at the side of the pool for a time while Mr Holden sat in a “high chair”.
Rodgers, the jury was told, was a member of the leisure centre, a member of a local swimming club and was known to be “an excellent swimmer” who would routinely swim lengths of the pool holding his breath underwater.
He was also known, the jury heard, to practice holding his breath “in a stationary position at the bottom of the pool”.
The incident giving rise to the charges occurred at about 9.20pm on April 7th. Mr McCollum described and the jury saw how three lanes of the pool were being taken up by a children’s swimming club, Rodgers was in the fourth lane and there were other swimmers in the rest of the pool.
Generally, the practice was that two lifeguards would be on duty at any one time with one in a “roaming position” and one in the high chair on the opposite side.
At the time of the incident which lead to Rodgers’ death, Holden was in the chair and Monaghan was “roaming” but coincidentally, “there was a change over” with Mr McVeigh and another lifeguard coming to relieve them.
Mr McCollum told the jury that midway through what would have been his third length underwater, Rodgers broke the surface and then “submerged to the bottom”, adding that thanks to the CCTV footage it was clear he was there for five minutes and 14 seconds “at which stage he was rescued but, unfortunately, died thereafter”.
A report from the coroner suggested that Rodgers “had experienced a loss of consciousness due to low blood oxygen” as a result of holding his breath coupled with the exertion of underwater swimming.
At 9.22pm, Mr “McVeigh entered the water ... to initiate a rescue” after a member of the public alerted him that Rodgers was in difficulty and had raised him to the surface.
Mr McCollum told the jury that while five minutes may not seem like a long time if for instance “you are waiting on a bus ... you might consider, we say, that for someone to be at the bottom of a pool, not emerging, five minutes and 14 seconds is a very, very long time”.
“That is a matter for you to consider at the end of the case,” he said.
Turning to what the three defendants were doing at the time, he told the jury Mr Holden was in the chair while Mr McVeigh and Mr Monaghan were poolside “in conversation at the corner of the deep end”.
When they alerted by a member of the public, Mr McVeigh used a metal pole to strike the steps “to try to get a response from Mr Rodgers”.
“There appears to be no response,” the jury heard. A minute after that, Mr McVeigh signalled to another swimmer to check on Rodgers.
A minute after that Mr McVeigh signalled to Mr Holden, who then retrieved a radio. A few seconds later, two members of the public retrieved Rodgers from the bottom of the pool.
It is the Crown case, said Mr McCollum, that each of them failed in their duty as lifeguards.
He said that when lifeguards are rotating, it “should only take a matter of seconds” to exchange information as it is “their job is to keep an eye on the people in the pool”.
He referred to a lifeguard handbook stating that lifeguards should “never talk on poolside unless a colleague is passing on vital info”.
“If you are not sure whether a swimmer is fooling around or actually in difficulty it is far better to react and initiate emergency respite than to delay the rescue,” he quoted to the jury.
“The prosecution say that self-evidently, they did not do this job properly because a very long period of time passed between Mr Rodgers hitting the bottom of the pool and any rescue attempt,” said Mr McCollum.
The trial continues.
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