Bournemouth beach incident: Hero teen, 18, pulled girl, 12, from sea before desperate medics fought to save her life

A HERO teen pulled a 12-year-old girl from the water at Bournemouth beach before medics fought to save her life.

The girl died along with a 17-year-old boy and eight others were injured during the horrors on East Beach at around 4.30pm yesterday.

A man in his 40s - who was "on the water" at the time - has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.

The first person to reach the girl, from Bedfordshire, was an 18-year-old boy.

His father, Rob Creech, said today: "My son was on the other side of the pier swimming with a few friends.

"All of a sudden there were a lot of people on the pier shouting and screaming that there was somebody in the water. He swam to the other side of the pier and he found a young girl floating face down in the water.

"The emergency services were just arriving at the beach so he was shouting to them and scooped her up to swim to shore. 

“He managed to get her out onto the beach and the emergency services took it from there."

Earlier on social media there had been speculation the swimmers had jumped off Bournemouth beach and had been struck by a jet-ski or boat.

However, in a press conference at the beach this afternoon Assistant Chief Constable Rachel Farrell ruled out the theory.

She said: "As we have a person in custody, you will know there is only limited information I can give about the investigation.

"However, to avoid further speculation, I am able to tell you that it's clear that yesterday a number of people already in the water got into difficulty and we are investigating the circumstances or event that caused that to happen.

"Early investigation indicates that there was no physical contact between a vessel and any of the swimmers at the time of the incident.

"I can also confirm there is no suggestion of people jumping from the pier or jet-skis being involved."

Beachgoers were left shocked yesterday as swarms of emergency services rushed to save the kids.

Dramatic photos show air ambulances landing on the beach while fire services were called alongside the Coastguard and police.

One witness, Ritta Saruchera, said her daughter and her friend were in the sea at the time when they saw what happened.

She said: "They were coming back out of the water when they saw a teenage boy struggling. There was another one floating in the water."

Nicola Holton, 43, and Stuart Clark, 42, were on the beach with their two children when the tragedy occurred.

They said the summertime scene turned into something from "a horror film."

Mr Clark said: "As we walked to the east side of the pier there was at least one but probably a few jet skiers going across the right side of the pier.

"We didn't take too much notice of them at the time. There were announcements throughout the afternoon telling people not to climb on the pier. After 2pm it seemed like people weren't going near it.

"The next announcement we got was at 4pm about a dangerous riptide in the water and it wasn't soon after that we saw a couple of swimmers in trouble out to sea.

"It got really chaotic when they brought a young man back to shore on a lifeguard jet ski. It was obvious he wasn't alive. That's when people started gathering around and the lifeguards were trying to clear the beach at the same time as helping the others in the water.

"We saw the young girl get brought out too and there were no obvious injuries on her either. I just wanted to get my family off the beach with our belongings."

Miss Holton said: "It was like a scene from a horror film. After an afternoon of lovely weather and the odd announcement to tell kids to stop climbing on the pier it looked like it had all settled down.

"When we first spotted the swimmers in distress they were far out to the east side of the pier.

"A lifeguard ran into the water with a surfboard and it seemed to take ages for him to get to them. There was an announcement to get out of the water and then the lifeguards started bringing people back to shore.

"A few were taken to the lifeguard tent and then we saw the young man and girl brought out. We were packing up our things to leave as quickly as we could. It was just awful.

"There were loads of idiots ignoring lifeguard requests to get out of the water and clear the beach. People were running towards those having CPR filming on their phones."

Flowers have today been laid on the beach in tribute to the kids who lost their lives.