Case Summary: Anthony Grant
Feb 02, 2022CASE SUMMARY
Anthony Grant (56 years old) attended Mile End Leisure Centre, operated by GLL, on Friday, 19 August 2016.
GLL positioned a single lifeguard to provide continuous poolside supervision for the safety of pool users. Near the end of the swimming lane, Mr Grant lost consciousness and remained submerged for 5 minutes and 41 seconds (Hassell, 2017). A member of the public alerted the lifeguard, who duly performed a rescue, recovered Mr Grant to poolside, and commenced CPR. Mr Grant died as a result of the incident. The incident was caught on the poolside CCTV.
The coroner’s inquest concluded on 19 October 2017. HM Coroner, Mary Hassell, issued a Regulation 28 prevention of future deaths notice, which included the following observations (Hassell, 2017):
Quite apart from the actions of an individual lifeguard, there are many ways that pool safety could have been approached differently that day.
The lifeguards could have changed position after 30 or 60 minutes as had been intended. There could have been more than one lifeguard on the poolside. The lifeguards could have been supported by a motion early warning system.
These are all matters for the industry to explore.
References (4)
Note: I wish those affected all the best in their future. No part of this article purports to attribute blame. See our methodology page for further details of how these case summaries are constructed.
Hassell, M. (2017). Regulation 28. Prevention of Future Deaths Report. Anthony Cleon Grant (16th November). Available at: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Anthony-Grant-2017-0410_Redacted.pdf accessed 16th July 2021.
Symcox, M. (2018). Response by the Royal Life Saving Society UK. (10th January). Available at: https://www.judiciary.uk/publications/anthony-grant/ accessed 16th July 2021.
Horton, T. (2020). Family of man who died in Mile End swimming pool approve release of CCTV for lifeguard training. (East London Advertiser, 14th October, 08:49; first published 27th February, 17:05). Available at: https://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/family-of-man-who-died-in-mile-end-swimming-pool-3588204 accessed 16th July 2021.
Traylor, N. (2018). Victim’s family allows lifesavers to review drowning footage. (Aquatics International, 14th March). Available at: https://www.aquaticsintl.com/lifeguards/victims-family-allows-lifesavers-to-review-drowning-footage_o accessed 16th July 2021.
Citation: Jacklin, D. 2022. Case Summary: Anthony Grant. Water Incident Research Hub, 2 February.
