A Brit mum who lost her husband and two children in a Christmas Eve pool tragedy prayed for them to come back to life as a tourist performed CPR.
Dad-of-three Josias Fletchman said the woman “stayed calm” as she touched her loved ones’ and prayed their hearts would start beating again while he tried to save her husband’s life.
The 35-year-old from Manchester told today how he returned to the apartment block where the triple tragedy occurred as staff at Costa del Sol holiday complex Club La Costa World were pulling the nine-year-old girl, her 16-year-old brother and their 52-year-old dad out of the water.
The family are said to be of Afro-Caribbean descent and from the London area.
In a moving account of how he tried to save them, Mr Fletchman said: “The mum was praying for them to come back to life.
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“She was calm. She was touching their bodies. She continued praying even after the ambulance people arrived and had stopped trying to revive them.
“She exercised her faith to the limit. I was performing CPR on her husband but I’m a believer and I prayed as well.
“She strengthened me in the way she reacted. It just wasn’t meant to be.
“Now I’m just praying for the peace of God to sustain her and the rest of her family and keep them at peace.”
Eni Raja, 22, originally from Norway but now living in Birmingham, added: “I saw the bodies with the three white blankets over them.
“The mum was crying. I can’t get the image out of my mind.
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“I didn’t see what had happened and I thought at first it might have been a stabbing.
“No-one’s told us not to swim in the pool and I’m shocked by that. I think it should be closed.
“All the other holidaymakers have been speaking about it but no-one knows what’s happening because the resort workers are not saying anything.”
Police insisted today they were keeping an open mind on the reasons for the triple tragedy, which happened around 1.30pm on Tuesday.
However, resort chiefs said they had been told there was no anomaly with the pool circulation system.
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Investigators are understood to have analysed the circulation system including the pump and network of skimmers and drains to check for any suction problems which could be deadly for young children.
Local reports say they have also searched for any items of clothing that might have got stuck in the pool drain and taken water samples to test ahead of the autopsies which were due to take place at Malaga’s Institute of Forensic Medicine.
The results of the autopsies will be passed on to an investigating judge but are rarely officially made public in Spain.
The sprawling resort where the tragedy happened, near the resort of Fuengirola, is the same place where British nine-year-old Habiba Chishti died in February after suffering a severe allergic reaction to an ice cream she had eaten at a nearby shopping centre.
The names of the father and two children have not been released.
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Well-placed sources have confirmed the nine-year-old and her dad were British, like the mum, but the 16-year-old was travelling on an American passport.
The family of five had checked into Club La Costa World on December 21 and were due to stay till Saturday.
Trained counsellors are now spending time with the mum and her other child, thought to be a teenage daughter, while other relatives jet to Spain from the UK.
Costa Club World spokesman Juan Jose Millan was unable to offer any explanation.
But he said they were co-operating fully with the police investigation and insisted he was not aware of any problems with the pool.
He said: “This has been a terrible occurrence and staff and some guests are receiving psychological support along with the family.
“There’s never been a problem with the pool and we receive hundreds of guests every week.
“It’s been functioning for years and it’s checked on a regular basis.
“The truth is that at the moment we don’t know what could have happened. The Civil Guard are doing tests and have told us that as things stand at the moment, they haven’t detected any problem with the pool drain system.”
He said he was unable to offer any more information about the family, who Good Samaritan Mr Fletchman described as being of Afro-Caribbean descent like him and from the London area.
Although Mr Millan said the pool where the triple tragedy occurred had been closed “as a precaution” there was no police tape around it or anything pointing to three people losing their lives there 24 hours earlier apart from a couple of candles by the water’s edge.
A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman said after news of the tragedy emerged: “We are offering assistance to a British woman following an incident in Spain.”
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