Thame Swimming Teacher Gives Inquest Evidence

THE Thame swimming teacher who tried to help save the life of a pupil who later died, told an inquest jury today about what she called: “The worst day of my life!”
Sarah Allen described how she ran around the edge of the pool to reach Nathan Matthews who had disappeared from her view, just as she heard a child shout: “Nathan didn’t come back!”
She told the Inquest Jury how she got into the water, submerged and pulled the boy, who was face up and clutching a green ‘sinker’, out of the water and placed him on the pool side.
Mrs Allen said: ” I thought he was recovering from a fit. He was was gurgling and moaning but I could not get his teeth apart to check his mouth. He was still breathing and when I pinched his thumb, it went pink so I knew his circulation was OK.”
She went on to describe how she left Nathan in the hands of the life-guard, and rushed into the medical room for a blanket, before returning to the medical room and bursting into tears, shouting: “Get me out of here; I have to get away from here!”

Other evidence heard today, the second day of the Inquest, included questions about whether swimming hats over ears would effect the children’s hearing of instructions (No, according to Sarah Allen and Louise Kippen (Teacher from Nathan’s school in Stokenchurch); the various responsibilities of school teachers, swimming teachers and Life-guards; whether the levels of life-saving skills of the two swimming teachers were adequate (they both contended that they were there to teach and not as life-guards, though they both had a basic life-saving qualification); what the correct position is for ‘the Recovery position’ (here a difference between the view of Louise Kippen and Sarah Allen, the latter insisting that Nathan was put in the correct position); how much noise was there in the pool (all witnesses saying that although the children were cheering on their friends, it was not excessively noisy – “All very well controlled,” said teacher, Mr Brian Maker).

Although Nathan’s mother, Penny Matthews, said yesterday that Nathan had missed some swimming lessons because she had withdrawn him due to bullying, class registers from the period shown in court showed that he had only missed one, on June 21, when the whole of his year missed the session because they were away on a school trip to Torquay.

There was also some discussion about a difference between Oxfordshire County Council’s swimming guidelines and those of the operating procedures of the Thame pool. Sarah Allen said that they complimented each other and both contributed to the safety of the children.

The Coroner, Mr Nicholas Gardiner, intervened when the solicitor acting for the Matthews family suggested that Sarah Allen’s attention was distracted away from the relay race going on at the time of the fatal incident, by a pupil at the other end of the pool who was performing particularly well following initially being very nervous in the water.
Mr Gardiner repeated Sarah Allen’s own statement that it was unfair to ask her to speculate about what might have happened.

Before Sarah Allen and given her evidence, Stokenchurch school teacher, Mr Brian Maker, spoke about the effect of the tragic incident on the whole school.
“Our children were devasted,” he said. “The situation was not helped by the fact that we were not allowed to say what had happened, and yet the children and the parents had to read in the papers that Nathan’s head had been held under the water and that he had been murdered by their friends.”
“Whoever wrote that stuff wants shooting,” he said.

The Coroner agreed, saying that such inaccurate reporting was: “Irresponsible.”

Mr Maker described how he went in the ambulance with Nathan and how they were met at the John Radcliffe hospital by a medic who asked if there was any previous illness or known reason why Nathan was in the condition he was.
“Something doesn’t seem right!” Mr Maker reported the medic to have said.

The Inquest will continue tomorrow when video evidence from Nathan’s fellow pupils is expected to be shown to the Jury.