2023-06-30 11:42:00
Tragic accident, child falls overboard on Baltic Sea ferry, mother jumps following them – both die
The Baltic Sea ferry “Stena Spirit” in the port of Gdynia, Poland
© Adam Warzawa/PAP via epa/DPA
06/30/2023, 1:42 p.m. 2 min.
On the way to Sweden, a child falls overboard on a ferry in the Baltic Sea. The mother wants to save it and jumps following it. Both are recovered – but do not survive the incident.
After a dramatic incident on a Baltic Sea ferry between Poland and Sweden, a child who fell overboard and his mother died. “Both the boy and the woman are no longer alive,” police directorate spokesman Inspector Mariusz Ciarka said on Friday the broadcaster TVN24. In the early hours of the morning, information was received from the Swedish side that this terrible news had to be brought to the family. When the two were pulled out of the water, they still showed signs of life.
The seven-year-old child and the mother – two Polish citizens – went overboard on Thursday followingnoon regarding halfway between Gdansk in Poland and Karlskrona in southern Sweden in the middle of the Baltic Sea. There were different reports of exactly how this happened on the “Stena Spirit” ferry: According to Swedish reports, the child fell into the water and his mother then jumped following it. Later, the Polish media also reported that both had gone overboard at the same time.
Child fell overboard, mother jumped
Video surveillance footage has been secured that does not confirm the version that a child fell overboard and an adult jumped following it, a spokeswoman for the shipping company Stena Line told the web portal of the Polish tabloid “Fakt”. The Swedish police were looking for passengers on the ferry who might report more regarding the course of the accident. The public prosecutor’s office in Gdańsk began investigations.
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“We were up on the sun deck and then saw a lot of people running to the rail and pointing down towards the water,” a passenger told Swedish broadcaster SVT. When a lifebelt was thrown into the water, he understood what had happened – but not that it was a child and its mother. When they were found, spontaneous applause broke out on board, another passenger reported.
Pulled from the Baltic Sea by rescuers
A major rescue operation was initiated immediately following the incident, during which the two were finally found in the early evening. They are said to have floated in the water for regarding an hour by then. According to the Swedish sea rescue service, they were pulled out of the water by helicopters and taken to the hospital. A rescue pilot involved told radio station P4 Blekinge that the mother was unresponsive and was treated all the way to the hospital.
The German Navy was also involved in the rescue operation, as a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defense said in Berlin on Friday. The frigate “Mecklenburg-Vorpommern” with two helicopters on board drove to the scene of the accident, one of the helicopters took a person to a hospital. After the news of the death of the two, the spokeswoman expressed her heartfelt condolences to the relatives.
cl/tkr/Doris Heimann and Steffen Trumpf DPA
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