My vain battle to save girl, 5, swept off beach by wave
A GRIEVING mother has told how she repeatedly tried to save her five-year-old daughter after a freak wave dragged her out to sea.
Rose Carter, from Salisbury, Wiltshire, was with her sister and her mother Sofia Carter at Durdle Door in Dorset on April 18 when the youngster was hit by the eight-foot wave, an inquest was told.
Mrs Carter was knocked off her feet as she tried to overcome the waves in search of Rose, Bournemouth coroner’s court was told.
The Coastguard was alerted and a military vessel recovered her but she was pronounced dead at Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester.
Mrs Carter, who did not attend the inquest, said in a statement that the sea was rough but she did not think it was dangerous as they walked along the edge of the beach with Rose about 10ft behind her.
She said: “I saw a really big wave that went over her head and knocked her off her feet.”
Mrs Carter said a second wave then also knocked her into the water and she added: “When I stood up I could no longer see Rose. Rose was beyond the breaking waves and I was aware a lady called 999 and a military boat was there within minutes.”
Witness Lucy Seviour, who had been taking part in coastal climbing nearby, said: “I saw Rose had been knocked flat by the waves and was being pulled in by the riptide and was half or threequarters of the way down the beach within a second.”
Ms Seviour said that she went into the water in an attempt to rescue Rose but was swept back to the beach by the waves that fractured one of her ribs.
She said: “I could see Rose for half a second and she was only half a metre away but I tried to move and was washed up on the beach.”
Another witness, Gordon Cobb, said he heard Mrs Carter screaming: “My daughter, my girl or my baby”, and added: “I could see a little girl’s head sticking out of the wave, physically there was no way she could have got through the wave.
“I had to watch her drift out to sea. The sea was very dangerous that day and the wave that hit the girl was a freak wave.”
Recording a verdict of accidental death, coroner Brendan Allen said: “Tragically Rose and her family were walking along the beach at the same time the freak wave crashed up the beach and washed Rose off her feet.
“It’s not something that could have been foreseen by anyone, it’s a tragedy that this has happened in these circumstances.”