Enlarge image
Rowers on Lake Starnberg (symbol picture)
Photo: Andreas Gebert / dpa
Six years after a boy had a fatal accident while rowing on Lake Starnberg in Bavaria, the trial against two supervisors began before the Starnberg District Court.
The public prosecutor's office accuses the two men, who were training a school sports group on the day of the accident in April 2015, of negligent homicide through omission.
At the beginning of the trial, the defendants expressed their deep regret over the death of the Munich high school student.
The fact that, among other things, a child died under his care was an "incredible tragedy," said the 55-year-old.
The co-defendant, an experienced trainer, was also deeply affected: “At some point we saw the empty boat.
That was just empty. ”The boy's mother, who appeared as a co-plaintiff, accepted the remarks without any apparent emotion.
The child's father described as a witness how he wanted to pick up his son from training, but he could not be found.
He had stood helpless on the bank and realized that he could not help his son, said the father.
"I am powerless."
A maximum of eight degrees water temperature
Because of the falling darkness, he had repeatedly insisted on requesting a helicopter.
Finally he went himself out with a flashlight to search the bank for the boy.
Perhaps, he had hoped at the time, his son was lying exhausted on the bank somewhere.
“My thought was: If he's alive and on the bank, then only now can he be helped.
The next day it would have been too late. "
According to the indictment, on April 19, 2015, the coaches instructed the 13-year-old to practice alone near the rowing club.
You yourself drove to another part of the lake to supervise other students.
According to the prosecutor, they let the 13-year-old out of sight.
For unknown reasons, the student is said to have left the area in which he was supposed to train and rowed a little way out onto the lake.
But he didn't make the way back because of strong headwinds.
Therefore, the 13-year-old is said to have left the boat and tried to swim to the shore.
In cold water - the prosecution assumes eight degrees, an expert suspected even lower temperatures - he died.
Years of struggle for a criminal trial
The coroner who autopsied the boy's body when it was found in the lake a few days after the accident described how quickly a person's body cools down in such cold water.
This leads to life-threatening areas in just a few minutes.
The prosecution assumes that the 13-year-old passed out and drowned.
The central accusation against the supervisors is to have left the 13-year-old alone.
The board of directors of the rowing club, also summoned as a witness, on whose boats and from whose premises the training took place, said that this was not in accordance with the club's training guidelines.
However, the training was not an event of the club, but a school sports group.
In addition, the board was surprised at the choice of the boat for the inexperienced rower.
Actually, you don't learn to row in a single boat, but in large boats.
This is a central safety measure, especially in the cold water time.
The dead boy's parents fought for a criminal trial for years.
The public prosecutor's office had originally indicted the matter at the Munich II regional court, but they then referred the case to the local court.
There the trial against monetary restrictions was discontinued.
The Munich II public prosecutor's office and the accessory prosecution took action against it.
The Munich II Regional Court then overturned the decision to terminate the contract, which is why negotiations are now taking place in Starnberg.
bbr / dpa
