‘No lifeguards on beach where tourism chief drowned’ – NI Inquest
No lifeguards were protecting a popular Northern Ireland beach when a Tourist Board chief drowned while body boarding in midsummer, an inquest heard today.
Coleraine Borough Council reinstated trained look-outs at Downhill, near Castlerock, Co Derry, after father-of-three David Roulston died.
Mr Roulston's widow Julie wept as she recalled how tragedy struck when their family stopped off on the way home from a holiday in Donegal last July.
The 46-year-old senior manager had gone into the water in his wetsuit, but without a lifejacket, while his college lecturer wife stayed on the shore.
She was then alerted by one of their children that his board had been washed up without him.
Even as she phoned the emergency services, Mrs Roulston told North Antrim Coroner's Court: "I felt I was likely to be over-reacting.''
But during today's hearing several witnesses told how the afternoon conditions changed dramatically as the sea became treacherous.
Lifeboat crews, coastguards and even a Royal Navy helicopter were all brought in to search for Mr Roulston, whose body was eventually located about 50 yards from the shore.
Darren Jones, a duty winchman for the Navy crew, told how he battled in vain to take hold of the body after being lowered into the water.
He said: "The first wave hit me and completely submerged me. We were only hovering about 40ft.
"We made several more attempts to gain contact with Mr Roulston but unfortunately we never did purely because of the waves.
"It proved impossible to get close and try to get a hand on him.''
Eventually the body of the Tourist Board official, from Knockvale Park, Belfast, was brought ashore and taken by helicopter to The Causeway Hospital in Coleraine where he was later pronounced dead.
During his evidence Alastair Simpson, a station officer with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, was asked if there had been any change in the lifeguard provisions for Downhill Beach.
He told coroner Brian Sherrard that after Mr Roulston's death and another drowning in nearby Portrush that summer the authorities had made changes.
"That helped the council make the decision to bring lifeguards back,'' he told the inquest.
"There were lifeguards on the beach but that was mainly going back to the late 1980s. It's been many years since there has been lifeguards on the beach.''
He also confirmed no warning flags were used on the day Mr Roulston drowned, but now a general safety sign and flags are used to alert people to possible dangers.
Guards are on duty from 10am to 7pm from mid-June until September, he added.
