The facts that occurred in 2015 are judged this Tuesday, January 17, 2023 before the criminal court of Nîmes. Eyline, 3, (see photo) died next to the lifeguard who was watching the pool but did not see the child drown.
It is a real tragedy that took place in a place of relaxation and leisure. It is nearly 8 p.m. on July 24, 2015, the Aquatropic swimming pool is emptying like every summer evening and a little girl is being sought. Has she fled or lost in the locker room of the establishment as the family of this 3-year-old girl thinks? It took a few seconds of inattention for the girl to disappear. An agent from a security company is called for help, but he does not react immediately, especially he communicates by information to the lifeguard at the edge of the swimming pool. The latter would have carefully scrutinized “every corner if I had known of this information”, indicates at the bar of the court a lifeguard prosecuted in criminal court for “involuntary homicide”. A few moments later a lady with a child in her arms comes out of the pool and calls out to the lifeguard on duty sitting on his seat at the edge of the indoor pool. “She told me, it’s normal for a little girl to be at the bottom of the water,” said the defendant at the hearing. He dives, pulls the child out of the water, sends cardiac and respiratory messages, but Eyline is in a desperate state. She died of her injuries a few weeks later.
Tuesday, January 17, 2023, the lifeguard resumes the chronology of events. “I dived, I took her out of the water, and I made her vomit,” continues the defendant, moved. An accident linked to “an accumulation of negligence, recklessness”, denounces the family lawyer. “Everyone here rejects a little responsibility. In reality it is the fault of one which caused the fault of the other and which ultimately leads to the tragedy”, continues the family lawyer.
Because that evening there were to be two lifeguards at the edge of this pool known for its dangerousness linked to blind spots, plants that obstruct visibility. A young lifeguard employed for the summer left on the sly earlier when he was supposed to finish at 8 p.m., he too was fired for “involuntary homicide”, like the corporate legal entity.
This lifeguard left the scene when the safety plan for the site’s pools required him, according to his schedule, to stay on site at the water’s edge until 8 p.m. sharp. The experienced lifeguard alone in post therefore, was sitting on his chair while there is a regulatory ban on sitting down during the service because otherwise the visibility is less for monitoring the pool. A lifeguard who evokes “a dangerous zone”, and who confesses in tears: “I blame myself for not having seen the little one”.
A series of breaches, an offense of manslaughter for which the court has reserved its decision. to January 24…
Boris De la Cruz
