Dramatic swimming accident: Father wants to save son (5) and drowns
Created: 06/30/2022, 16:54
A rescue helicopter of the type Christophorus 9 was also used in the swimming accident on Wednesday in the Neue Donau in Vienna (symbolic image).
© Michael Indra / SEPA.Media / Imago
On Wednesday, a father drowned in the Neue Donau in Vienna while trying to save his son from the water.
Before that, his wife had jumped into the Danube, she and the child survived.
Vienna – On Wednesday (June 29), a family had a dramatic swimming accident on a leisure trip in Vienna.
According to police reports, the family was on a rental boat on the New Danube in the late afternoon when the 5-year-old son jumped into the water and shortly afterwards showed signs of exhaustion.
The 43-year-old father jumped after him - and didn't appear again.
Swimming accident in Vienna: 5-year-old jumps into the water, parents try to save him
During a family trip with a rental boat on the New Danube in the Austrian capital Vienna, the father is said to have swam next to the boat, according to the police report.
Meanwhile, mother and child sat in the boat, then the 5-year-old son is said to have jumped into the water, but quickly showed signs of exhaustion.
As a result, the 38-year-old mother is said to have jumped into the Danube.
In the rescue attempt, however, the parents are said not to have succeeded in bringing their child back into the boat.
The 38-year-old and her 43-year-old husband did not make it back to the rescue vessel themselves.
Swimming accident in Vienna: Witnesses save the woman and child, but the father of the family no longer appears
Only through the courageous intervention of witnesses who saw the incident could the woman and child be saved from drowning.
The Witnesses jumped into the water themselves and came to the family's aid.
However, the 43-year-old family man went under and never showed up again.
A rescue operation was started, in which a total of 34 emergency services were looking for the 43-year-old - nine of them trained divers, such as
Oe24
reported.
"We found the family man after ten minutes of intensive searching with a maximum visibility of 1.5 meters at a depth of six meters," reported the spokesman for the Vienna professional fire brigade, Christian Feiler, to the APA news agency.
The father was found about 40 meters from the spot where, according to witnesses, he is said to have gone under.
According to the fire department, resuscitation attempts were made directly in the fire engine boat on the way to the shore and were continued in the Christophorus 9 rescue helicopter on the way to the hospital.
However, the man died during the rescue operation.
The 38-year-old woman, her 5-year-old son and one of her rescuers were taken to hospital with symptoms of exhaustion and hypothermia.
Again and again there are tragic swimming accidents, most recently in northern Germany: In Hamburg, a 13-year-old jumped into the Elbe although he could not swim.