Bournemouth half-term tragedy; Girl, 12, and boy, 17, who died on packed beach

The 12-year-old girl and 17-year-old boy who died in Bournemouth yesterday were unrelated and were enjoying a day at the beach with family and friends when they ran into trouble at sea, it was revealed today. Eight other children were injured after getting into trouble in the water near the beach and pier in Dorset packed with tourists and locals yesterday afternoon. Bournemouth half-term tragedy; Girl 12 and boy 17 died on beach

The 12-year-old girl from Buckinghamshire and a 17-year-old boy from Southampton, who were not related, died yesterday afternoon, police said. Councilor Vikki Slade, leader of Bournemouth Council, said today her loved ones “came to the beach for a great day and went home without a child.” A man in his 40s, who had been “in the water” at the time of the incident, was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. He remains in custody.

Dorset Deputy Police Chief Rachel Farrell said officers are investigating the “circumstances or events” that caused a number of people to have difficulty in the water in Bournemouth on Wednesday. But her ACC Farrell refused to reveal what she believed she caused the tragedy despite asking the public not to speculate.

Tobias Ellwood, Conservative MP for Bournemouth East, said police need to “reassure” the public. He said: ‘Bournemouth beach is one of the best and safest seaside resorts in the UK. The police have an investigation to do but they urgently need to give details of what they think happened here.’

Bournemouth half-term tragedy; Girl 12 and boy 17 died on beach incident detail

She said: “After our initial investigations, a man in his 40s who was in the water at the time, was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. ‘As we have a person in custody, you will know that I can only provide limited information about the investigation. “However, to avoid further speculation, I can tell you that it is clear that several people already in the water had problems yesterday and we are looking into the circumstances or event that caused that to happen.”

“Preliminary investigation indicates that there was no physical contact between a boat and any of the swimmers at the time of the incident. I can also confirm that there are no indications of people jumping off the dock or jet skis involved.” The Times reports that police are investigating the possibility that the deaths were caused by a boat wash. A spokesman declined to comment. But Bournemouth West Conservative MP Conor Burns said he understood a ‘surface ship’ was at sea around Bournemouth pier at the time the 12-year-old girl and 17-year-old boy had trouble.

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He said: “It would not seem too far off to conclude that while the boat may not have physically touched the youngsters, it perhaps created the conditions that made being in the water more dangerous because of the speed at which what was going”. Councilor Vikki Slade, leader of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council, said what happened in Bournemouth on Wednesday must have been a “terrifying” experience. She said: ‘I again want to add our deepest condolences to the families of the children who lost their lives, and our thoughts are with the families of the young men who were in the water.

It must have been a really scary experience for everyone. ‘The services worked incredibly well together. All our staff on the beach came together to support the emergency services. She said additional staff are available to the public on the beach on Thursday and over the weekend, adding: ‘The beach is busy. We are making sure the RNLI is highly visible and our teams are available there to help people and make sure they feel safe on the beach.” She said Bournemouth “continues to be a really fantastic place to visit”, adding that the incident needs to be properly investigated.

“And we trust with our partners that any lessons that need to be learned in the future will be learned,” she said. Mackenzie Creech, 18, was with friends on the beach at the South Shore vacation spot enjoying the sun when they heard yelling and shouting from the pier. She looked up and saw crowds pointing at someone in the water and ran with a friend to drag her to the beach but sadly they couldn’t do anything to save her.

The girl, who has not been named, died along with a 17-year-old boy in the incident that also left eight other children injured after they are believed to have been swept out to sea by a current after jumping from the pier. Mackenzie told MailOnline: ‘It all happened so fast, one minute I was enjoying the beach with some friends and then we heard yelling and yelling. She looked up and saw crowds pointing at someone in the water and she ran with a friend to drag her to the beach, but sadly there was nothing they could do to save her.

The girl, who has not been named, died along with a 17-year-old boy in the incident that also left eight other children injured after they are believed to have been swept out to sea by a current after jumping from the pier. Mackenzie told MailOnline: ‘It all happened so fast, one minute I was enjoying the beach with some friends and then we heard yelling and yelling. “We were on the other side of the pier, but you could hear all this noise, so we went over to see what was going on and people were pointing at the water.”

“I could see a body in the water, and I just ran over and picked it up with someone else. He was upside down when I got there and he wasn’t moving. ‘She was very bad. She “She was in a bathing suit, but she didn’t seem to have any injuries.” There were no cuts or bruises and she knew she didn’t look good so I took her to the beach. “I put her in the sand and by this time the emergency services had come and started doing CPR on her.

“People were yelling and yelling and it was all really chaotic and then someone put up some towels as a screen while the paramedics worked on it. She expected her to make it and she didn’t know she had passed away until she saw it on the news. I was devastated when I heard that and it upset me, it’s very sad that something like this happened. Mackenzie, who is from Tilehurst near Reading and studies sports at university, added: “I really don’t know what happened.” It was all a bit confusing.

“People were saying they had been hit by a jet ski or a boat, but there were definitely no injuries to the girl. There was no blood or cuts or anything like that. “What amazed me was the number of people who were just filming everything on their phones when the emergency services were trying to do their job. “When I left, a policeman took my information and said thank you for doing what I did, but I did what anyone would have done.”

The director of Mackenzie’s father’s company, Robert Creech, told MailOnline: ‘He was very quick on her part and she was just trying to help. “When he told me about it, I could see that he was upset and when we found out that the poor girl had passed away, he was devastated. It’s a shame everyone involved is so young.

I had just gone to the beach with her friends for half term and then this happened, but I’m proud that she did what she could to help. He is a good boy. Several earlier witnesses said that people had been jumping off the pier. The sand near the pier had to be cleared so that two air ambulances could land, but sadly the two schoolchildren later died in hospital. Witnesses described harrowing scenes as CPR was administered on the beach and some “idiots” with phones were seen filming lifeguards trying to revive the two children.

Since 2004, Britain’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency has dealt with more than 200 headstone incidents, including pier jumping, which have resulted in at least 70 injuries and 20 deaths. Police confirmed today that no boats are believed to have been in “physical contact” with the children following speculation on social media that they had been hit by a jet ski or boat. But there have been claims that the tragedy may have been caused by a jet ski washing out.

MailOnline has asked Dorset Police to comment. But a local surfer said he saw three jetskiers ‘buzzing the pier’ near the line on Tuesday, the day before the tragic incident. There has been an ongoing problem between motorcyclists and water users in the dock area. Nicola Holton, who was on the beach with her husband, said: “A lifeguard went to rescue two struggling swimmers but was unable to bring them up. He saw another person struggling and a second lifeguard came out to them but there were several people. in trouble.

The remaining lifeguard was trying to get everyone out of the water. The ambulance service went to the struggling person rescued by the second rescuer. More lifeguards arrived to rescue another swimmer near the pier. My husband saw another swimmer struggling. He ran to the rescuers. Immediately the guard came in and they picked him up on a jet ski.

‘I will never get the image of him being taken out of my head. They cleared the beach for the air ambulance. Then another was spotted and brought back to shore to work on it. Absolutely awful. Lots of idiots ignoring lifeguard requests to get out of the water and clean up the beach. People were running to the ones with CPR footage on their phones.” Eeman Qamar, from Southampton, was on the beach with her mother and three-month-old baby.

She told the BBC that just after 4pm lifeguards began to tell people to clear the beach, saying there had been a major incident. ‘After about 20 minutes, the first air ambulance arrived and landed right in the middle of the beach,’ she said. Ms Qamar continued: ‘The lifeguards started getting on jet skis and boats, searching the sea and about 20 minutes later the second air ambulance arrived and it took another hour-and-a-half for them to finish the whole search and rescue operation.’

A Dorset and Wiltshire Fire Service spokesperson said: ‘We were called to East Beach, Bournemouth at 4.39pm to support a multi-agency incident.

‘We have crews in attendance from Westbourne and Springbourne, together with a technical rescue team from Poole.’ A spokesperson for the South Western Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) said: ‘We sent two air ambulances, six double-crewed land ambulances, one critical care car, two operations officers, one doctor, one hazardous area response team and one responding officer.’

HM Coastguard told MailOnline that ‘two people had been pulled from the water and passed into the care of the ambulance service’ and that ‘coastguards searched to make sure there were no other people missing and are satisfied there are not’. Bus routes that would normally serve the Pier stops were diverted through the square.