LOCAL

A child’s death in a water park in the Moscow region has seen numerous people fall under investigators’ scrutiny, while the full details of yesterday’s fatal episode are yet to be discovered.

Kostya Shvedov, 5, died in a hospital where he was admitted unconscious from the Yuna Laif complex in the Mytishchi district, according to the Investigative Committee’s data.

Russian children’s ombudsman Pavel Astakhov called for a special probe to be carried out into medics’ response, while parents and the park’s administration blamed one another. 

Criminal case opened

Initially, investigators were planning to scrutinize the actions of all people involved – Kostya’s parents, doctors and the park’s staff, according to the committee’s website.  A criminal case has been opened over death due to professional and criminal negligence.

Astakhov, however, wrote in his twitter feed that the boy was still alive when medics arrived and their actions “were not quick and efficient.” He didn’t reveal the source of his data.

February has already seen one child die in a water park, as a five year old girl was killed in the Chelyabinsk region when she ran into a man on a slide. A manslaughter case has been opened over the incident, Interfax reported.

40 minutes for help to arrive

Ambulances from the two nearest stations couldn’t respond to the call concerning Shvedov, because the area is serviced by another medical station, which is located further away, a source at law enforcement bodies told RIA Novosti.

According to the source, medics arrived 40 minutes after the boy was found unconscious and since the water park had no special premises where take the boy could be taken, they started medical procedures by the swimming pool.

“People kept on swimming and paid no attention to what was going on,” the source told the agency.

‘Still can’t understand how he could have got there’

The boy’s father, however, believes that fault entirely rests on the water park’s administration, instructors and controllers.

Andrei Kondratyev, 37, said he and his wife lost sight of their son for just few minutes after they decided to take a swim themselves and then immediately announced his disappearance through a PA system.

“Only after 20 minutes did we find him in a swimming pool for grown ups. We still can’t understand how he could have got there,” Kondratyev told LifeNews.

Yuna Laif’s representatives said the boy’s parents had been given instructions and signed paperwork confirming that. “But instead of watching their child they were relaxing by themselves,” LifeNews cited Vera Kalinina, the complex’ manager, as saying.

Kondratyev and his wife said they had neither received any instructions, nor signed anything.