The guilt of a lifeguard for the drowning of a 3 -year -old boy in pool The hotel was decided by the Rhodes Criminal Court.
The 3 -year -old’s drowning incident in the hotel pool occurred in the summer of 2020. The Rhodes Criminal Court was guilty of one of the four defendants, attributing the supervisory lifeguard the responsibility for the tragic loss of the child.
This is the second defendant who allegedly had Clear command to supervise the area of the children’s pool and the adjacent adult tank “Athena”, where the fate was noted. The court acknowledged her a previously legitimate life and imposed a two -year prison sentence with a three -year suspended suspension.
The Head of Lifeguards and the Operator of the Pools – were found innocent. At the same time, the hotel manager’s indictment had previously been declared invalid according to dimokratiki.gr.
The time of the tragedy
The incident happened on August 3, 2020, when a three -year -old boy from abroad escaped the attention of his parents and entered a 1.35 -meter pool alone, which, although theoretically off, was right next to the shallow children’s pool. According to the indictment, the area had not been sufficiently ruled out or were effectively monitored.
The child remained in the water without supervision, suffered a paranoid and was initially transferred to Rhodes General Hospital and then to Heraklion University Hospital, where he finally ended up on August 31 2020. Death was attributed to secondary drowning, as a result of the entry of fluids into the lungs and the deterioration of the condition days after the event.
The Court’s rationale
The decision was mainly based on the assumption that the convicted lifeguard, according to the day’s program, had to be in that position until 17:35. Instead, he was unjustifiably absent at an unknown part of the hotel at critical time. The court ruled that its presence in the planned position could prevent the child from entering the dangerous pool.
On the contrary, the court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to establish a criminal responsibility for the other two defendants. In particularthe head of lifeguards was considered to have no immediate knowledge of the absence of her existingwhile the Operator could not be documented that he had violated his responsibilities on staff distribution in a deliberate or gross negligence.