Daughter also claimed in Zimbali drowning

Tragic news broke Saturday afternoon between 2.30 and 3pm that a married couple in their sixties and their two daughters were swept off the beach between Zimbali and Tongaat river mouth, where rough seas claimed the lives of the women’s parents.

Both daughters were transported to hospital by emergency services, but on Saturday night at 10pm the 41-year-old daughter of the deceased couple also lost her life after suffering critical symptoms of near drowning.

According to Quentin Power of the Specialised Rescue Unit (SRU), the family, from Pietermaritzburg, were guests at Fairmont Zimbali Lodge where they were celebrating the father’s 65th birthday.

He said the surviving 25-year-old daughter said that the family were taking photographs on the beach when a large wave washed her mother and older sister out to sea, which prompted her and her father to jump in an attempt to rescue them.

A member of the public only known as Hershal, together with a friend witnessed the tragedy, pulled the older sister out of the water and started cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on the woman until paramedics arrived.

The woman was taken to hospital, where she was receiving treatment in Alberlito’s intensive care unit (ICU) until she died a few hours later.

Both the 65-year-old father and the 63-year-old mother were declared dead on the beach after being washed onto shore roughly 400 metres from where they swept out to sea. Attempts from paramedics to resuscitate them were unsuccessful.

Power said that the youngest sister is in a stable condition after being released from hospital yesterday to join her family in Pietermaritzburg, but understandably emotionally traumatised at the loss of her parents and sister.