Onlookers who filmed fatal drowning in Cork asked to delete footage

By Gráinne Ní Aodha, PA

People have been asked not to share and to delete videos of a drowning that took place in Cork city this week.

Emergency service workers have criticised those who filmed the incident that took place at the River Lee on Wednesday evening, and have asked them to delete any footage and not to share it.

The mother of the man who drowned, named as Luke Hyde, 34, said the scene was “like a circus” and asked whether people understood the “heartache” her family was going through.

Elizabeth Hyde, 76, said she was “disgusted” at the idea of people filming and watching “my son drown instead of trying to help him”.

In an emotional interview, she told RedFM’s Neil Prendeville Show that this was the second time in five years she had lost a son.

She said that that the image of her youngest son’s body being recovered “will never leave me” and asked what have “people in this world come to”.

“I was disgusted when I heard you talking this morning about all those people down there watching my son drown instead of trying to help him.

“I don’t know if these people know the heartache and the suffering we are going through in his family are going through today.”

Gardaí and emergency services carried out a search and rescue operation at the scene of the tragedy and have asked people not to share and to delete any footage.

“An Garda Síochána are aware of videos on social media and would encourage that no videos relating to this are circulated,” Gardai said in a statement.

Victor Shine, second officer with Cork Fire Brigade, asked that people delete any footage of the incident they had.

“This is not a piece of footage that should be up on a public system,” he told RTÉ’s Drivetime.

“That family may come across it or it may be shared with them, and how that on a file that they are looking at a family member in the final stages of life, it’s not a good thing.”

Asked if social media had made problems such as this worse, he said it was “horrendously worse”.

“I listened to the mother of this poor deceased male this morning who was distressed by the whole event and ran down in her bare feet and witnessed this spectacle of the amount of people standing by watching her son being recovered from the water, it was a horrendous scene.”

He said moving the crowd of people who were standing by took up time and resources and should not be needed.

“Gardai had to push people (back), force them to clear the area, and we had to put up additional privacy screens, screens to block off the area so that when the casualty was recovered to the shoreline or to the roadway, rescue attempts to check for signs of life and so on could carry on.”

Taoiseach Micheál Martin condemned the filming of the tragedy and said it was “a very sad and regrettable feature of modern life” while speaking in Cork on Friday.

The Cork South-Central TD said what happened was “horrendous” and people needed to maintain “dignity” in “distressful circumstances”.

“It’s a very sad and regrettable feature of modern life.

“We have the mobile phones and devices.

“It was horrendous what happened.

“My understanding is two people had gone through a swim, both gone into difficulty, one was able to get out and raise the alarm.

“I read what the fire officers said that they found it very difficult to comprehend that there was no life buoys thrown in to help, but people were taking photographs or videoing and for family members, that’s very traumatic, and it’s very, very sad.”

He added: “I am very well aware of other incidents that happen where people are very brave, where people do the right thing and every year we award bravery, we award good actions by citizens and that happens too, and that needs to be said.

“Not withstanding the modern era we live in, I think decorum and dignity is essential values that we should retain, particularly when people are in distressful circumstances, and in that situation where a person is actually drowning.”