Hero bystander who tried to rescue dad and daughter killed in sea tragedy tells how he was lucky to survive himself
A DAD who drowned with his daughter at Britain’s top surf beach is thought to have jumped in to the sea to try to save her.
A hero bystander heard shouts of help and dashed down a cliff to the shore, where he saw the daughter lying face down in the water at Fistral Beach in Newquay, Cornwall.
Her boyfriend was nearby trying to reach her after she apparently fell in by accident while walking — and her father followed in a failed rescue bid.
Bystander Jamie Stockwell, 47, threw himself in fully clothed to grab the woman, aged in her early 30s, who was being bashed against rocks in a strong swell.
He managed to push her to the shore where he and her boyfriend began trying CPR.
Jamie said: “I saw her head down in the water and her partner was trying to shout at her.
“I jumped in with all my clothes on. I didn’t realise how deep it was.
“It was very powerful swell and I was lucky I wasn’t another casualty.
“We were being hurled on to the rocks. I managed to push her up and her boyfriend pulled her up by the arms and started to try to give her mouth-to-mouth.
“She had swallowed loads of salt water. We tried to give her CPR for about ten minutes. I was trying to keep her partner calm as he was in pieces.”
The father, said to be in his 60s, was pulled out of the water a few hundred feet away and given CPR but also died.
Sand Phoenix, who was dozing on Fistral Beach, sprinted to help the man after hearing the commotion.
Sand, 33, said: “He’d been pulled out of the water but had been in there for about seven minutes. I had an adrenaline pen which I jabbed him with and tried to give him oxygen but his lungs were full of water and there was no response.
“The paramedics arrived and carried on trying to give CPR.
“He was still wearing his trousers so I don’t think he had been swimming. Apparently, he had gone in to try to rescue his daughter.
“It was an awful thing.”
He added: “I think she must have fallen in by accident because she was still wearing trousers and a bikini top.”
The dad and daughter, from Doncaster, South Yorks, died at the western edge of the beach underneath the clifftop Fistral Beach Hotel and Spa as the sun went down at around 9.30pm on Sunday.
A Coastguard helicopter, boats, police and ambulance services scrambled to the scene.
A woman, understood to be the mother of the female victim, was at the top of the cliff sobbing as their bodies were recovered.
The 750-metre beach is known as the home of British surfing because of its huge wave swells.
Earlier in the day, a man died after getting into difficulty at West Wittering beach in West Sussex.
