Lifeguard tells court he 'did the best he could with the knowledge he had' in swimming pool death case
A lifeguard accused of breaching his duty of care after a strong swimmer drowned told a jury he believes “what I did at the time was the best I could have done with the knowledge I had at that time”.
Giving evidence to Newry Crown Court on his own behalf, Cathal Forrest-McVeigh told the jury he had thought a lot about what had happened the night that Christopher Rogers drowned in the swimming pool at Orchard Leisure Centre in Armagh “and was there anything before this point that I could have reacted differently to?”
“I have thought about it a lot since too,” he told defence KC Gavan Duffy, “until recently working in Orchard and regularly standing in that same spot and thinking about it.”
“On 7 April 2017 were you doing your best,” Mr Duffy asked, “were you taking as much care as you possibly could?”
Concluding his often pensive evidence, McVeigh answered simply “yes” to both questions.
On trial each facing a single count that being employee, they were in breach their duty to others on 7 April 2017 are: McVeigh, 35, from Dunamony Road in Dungannon; William Holden, 26, from Unshinagh Lane in Portadown and James Monaghan, 26, from Folly Lane in Armagh.
The jury have heard that having swam two and a half lengths of the pool underwater Mr Rogers broke the surface and then, having tragically suffered a hypoxic blackout, the 20-year-old “accomplished swimmer” sank to the bottom of the pool where he remained for just over five minutes before he was pulled out.
The jury have heard that during the time Mr Rogers was submerged, the lifeguards were aware of him and had been observing him, that McVeigh and Monaghan were engaged in conversation for two minutes and twenty seconds and that before they attempted a rescue, McVeigh had banged on the steps with a pole and had asked another swimmer to check on him, that swimmer believing that he got a “thumbs up” sign from the 20-year-old.
Tragically that “thumbs up” signal was actually Mr Rogers’ body experiencing decerebrate and decorticate posturing where his limbs moved involuntarily during a seizure brought on by his brain being starved of oxygen.
It is the Crown case that each of the defendants breached their duty of taking reasonable care by waiting too long to initiate a rescue, that the prolonged changeover of pool duties distracted them and that they “missed the signs” that Mr Rogers was in danger.
The jury have also heard however that during their training and induction, the lifeguards received no guidance about hypoxic blackouts or the signs to look for or about the dangers of prolonged breath holding and extensive underwater swimming.
Before turning to the tragic incident which claimed the life of Mr Rogers, McVeigh outlined that he first qualified as a lifeguard when he was 16 and since then, he has almost always worked safe guarding lives in various pools including at an American summer camp and as a volunteer at the Rio Olympics.
In addition to training as a pool lifeguard, McVeigh told the jury he had also completed training as an open water lifeguard and further that he now worked as a swimming coach and was qualified as a lifeguard trainer and assessor.
Confirming that throughout the training he was taught about different rescue techniques, first aid, CPR as well as physical tests, McVeigh said until the tragedy which took the life of Mr Rogers there was no such training or instruction about hypoxic blackouts or decerebrate and decorticate posturing.
While the Crown have suggested the lifeguards were distracted by the prolonged handover and the 140 second conversation between McVeigh and Monaghan, he told the jury today their conversation was about Mr Rogers “swimming lengths underwater holding his breath.”
“He also told me that he had been sitting on the floor [of the pool] holding his breath,” said McVeigh adding that he walked from the handover point to a different part of the pool where he would have the best view of Mr Rogers.
From that point of view, McVeigh told the jury he could see the 20-year-old seemingly sitting up and lying flat, his arms moving in what he thought was a “skulling motion” to keep him at the bottom.
“At that time, did you think that he was in danger or that he was in distress,” asked Mr Duffy and McVeigh told him “absolutely not.”
“I could see him moving underwater in what I believed were skulling motions, a deliberate action to keep himself underwater. I had been told by James that he had been practising his breath holding, that he had been previously lying on the floor holding his breath and that helped me form the opinion that Chris was doing the same thing again,” the lifeguard explained, “so at that point I was not concerned that he was in danger.”
With lifeguard training regimes now changed and revised, McVeigh told the jury had watched videos of a person experiencing decerebrate and decorticate posturing and he “immediately recognised” their movements were similar “to what I thought were the skulling motions that Chris had made that night.”
“After Chris’ death did you question yourself about that night,” Mr Duffy asked and the defendant told the court that during staff training in Dungannon the following day “I got into the pool and swam out to roughly the same depth.”
“I took a breath and sat on the floor, holding my breath for as long as I could and I thought about what Chris would have been thinking on that night, how he would have felt.”
In his cross examination prosecuting KC Liam McCollum put to McVeigh that while he said he had thought about the incident, he had not answered his own question about whether there was anything he could have done differently.
“I was going to say that what I did at the time was the best I could have done with the knowledge I had at that time,” McVeigh told the senior barrister, adding that what he had seen himself, what his colleague had told him and with another swimmer confirming that Mr Rogers had given a thumbs up sign, “supported the view I had made that Chris was conscious and holding his breath deliberately.”
He conceded the point that had he gotten into the pool and swam to Mr Rogers “I would have known that he was unconscious” but he refuted Mr McCollum’s suggestion that he had assumed the stricken swimmer was conscious.
The experienced lifeguard maintained that rather than making an assumption, “I based my assessment on observations I made myself, seeing Chris moving in what I believed to be deliberate skulling motions and with the evidence that Mr Monaghan passed on to me that he was doing this previously before I came on poolside.”
The trial continues.