Emergency
Gone overboard on a Baltic Sea ferry: child and mother dead
A boy and his mother fell overboard on the Baltic Sea ferry “Stena Spirit” (archive photo). photo
© Adam Warzawa/PAP via epa/dpa
A seven-year-old boy and his mother go overboard on a ferry in the middle of the Baltic Sea. During a major rescue operation, the two can be found. However, there is sad news.
After a dramatic incident on a Baltic Sea ferry between Poland and Sweden, a child who fell overboard and his mother died. “Both the boy and the woman are no longer alive,” police directorate spokesman Inspector Mariusz Ciarka told TVN24. In the early hours of the morning, information was received from the Swedish side that the terrible news had to be brought to the family. When the two were pulled out of the water, they still showed signs of life.
The seven-year-old child and the mother – two Polish citizens – went overboard on Thursday afternoon about halfway between Gdansk in Poland and Karlskrona in southern Sweden in the middle of the Baltic Sea. There were different reports of exactly how this happened on the “Stena Spirit” ferry: According to Swedish reports, the child fell into the water and his mother then jumped after it. Later, the Polish media also reported that both had gone overboard at the same time.
Video surveillance footage has been secured that does not confirm the version that a child fell overboard and an adult jumped after it, a spokeswoman for the shipping company Stena Line told the web portal of the Polish tabloid “Fakt”. The Swedish police were looking for passengers on the ferry who could report more about the course of the accident. The public prosecutor’s office in Gdańsk began investigations.
Big rescue operation
“We were up on the sundeck and then we saw a lot of people running to the railing and pointing down towards the water,” a passenger told Swedish broadcaster SVT. When a lifebelt was thrown into the water, he understood what had happened – but not that it was a child and its mother. When they were found, spontaneous applause broke out on board, another passenger reported.
A major rescue operation was initiated immediately after the incident, during which the two were finally found in the early evening. They are said to have floated in the water for about an hour by then. According to the Swedish sea rescue service, they were pulled out of the water by helicopters and taken to the hospital. A rescue pilot involved told radio station P4 Blekinge that the mother was unresponsive and was treated all the way to the hospital.
The German Navy was also involved in the rescue operation, as a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defense said in Berlin. The frigate “Mecklenburg-Vorpommern” with two helicopters on board drove to the scene of the accident, one of the helicopters took a person to a hospital. After the news of the death of the two, the spokeswoman expressed her heartfelt condolences to the relatives.