Staff tell of slow reaction to body
AFrench tourist who died in a hot pool at Rotorua’s Polynesian Spa was seen by a staff member face down in the pool but no one immediately pulled him out.
An inquest into the death of Denis Miklus, 67, was held in the Coroner’s Court in Rotorua yesterday before Coroner Gordon Matenga.
Miklus was found dead in the Priest Pool about 1pm on June 19, 2018.
His partner of 29 years, Jany Toomaru, had dropped him at the pools while she shopped.
Spa duty manager Kauljeet Kaur said Miklus and two other customers had been the only people in the pool.
While doing her checks, she noticed Miklus’ body floating under the water with his hands clasped near his stomach.
Kaur said she thought he was doing exercises and didn’t want to disturb him.
She initially said she left him for about two minutes before checking him again. When she went back she realised something was wrong and alerted lifeguard Elly Tibus.
Kaur later gave an additional statement to police to say it was actually about 40 to 50 seconds later and she had initially got her timing wrong because she was in shock.
When she approached him again, she said “Hello, hello,” but Miklus didn’t respond. “His lips were blue, his tongue was out and his body was white.”
She hadn’t gone to Miklus immediately when seeing him under water, she said, as she had seen other customers doing exercises under water.
She said she didn’t want him to complain about being disturbed as she had seen other customers unhappy about that previously.
Coroner Matenga asked Kaur questions on behalf of Miklus’ daughter, who lived overseas and was not present at the inquest, including why no one pulled Miklus out of the pool when they noticed he was face down in the water.
Kaur said it was common to see people lying stationary.
Polynesian Spa health and safety manager Carol Mio, who helped Tibus do CPR on Miklus, also confirmed customers did tai chi and yoga poses underwater in the pools.
Toomaru, who was at the
inquest, said Mio told her something along the lines of “there was a problem with the shifting”, which she took to mean with the changeover in staff’s shifts.
Mio said she recalled saying sorry to Miklus’ partner but didn’t remember saying there was a problem because at that point she had no idea what had happened.
Mio confirmed Polynesian Spa had reduced the temperature of the pool from 42C to 41C since Miklus’ death and had employed an additional lifeguard to ensure there were now three monitoring the complex instead of two.
Pathologist Dr Tim Sutton said Miklus had died from drowning. He said there were no other medical conditions or injuries indicating he had suffered a medical event.
Sutton said it was his opinion Miklus had fainted in the hot water and drowned.
There was no hydrogen sulphide poisoning present in his body, as there had been in some earlier hot pool deaths.
He said people could die from heat exhaustion, especially in water as hot as 42C.
Work Safe NZ health and safety inspector Dipak Makan said he concluded Polynesian Spa had not breached the Health and Safety Act.
Polynesian Spa chief executive Gert Taljaard said it had a “proud” safety record given the number of bathers using the pools each year.
He said a woman had died in the Priest Pool in 2003 after spending 37 minutes in the pool without a break.
Taljaard said there was signage around the pools reminding users to take breaks and to hydrate regularly.
Coroner Matenga has reserved his finding.