{"id":29258,"date":"2025-05-19T12:47:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T12:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/teen-who-drowned-at-aberavon-could-not-swim-inquest-hears\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T12:47:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T12:47:14","slug":"teen-who-drowned-at-aberavon-could-not-swim-inquest-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/teen-who-drowned-at-aberavon-could-not-swim-inquest-hears\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen who drowned at Aberavon could not swim, inquest hears"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"FamilyFamily photo<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

David Ejimofor, 15, died at Aberavon beach, Neath Port Talbot, on 19 June 2023<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A teenager who died after jumping into the sea from a pier had told friends he “couldn’t swim”, an inquest has heard.<\/p>\n

David Ejimofor, 15, died at Aberavon beach, Neath Port Talbot, on 19 June 2023 <\/a>after joining friends at the beach to celebrate the end of their exams.<\/p>\n

The hearing, at Swansea’s Guildhall, heard from a fisherman who said he heard the boy telling other teenagers he “couldn’t swim”.<\/p>\n

His mother, Maria Ejimofor, described her son as “beautiful young boy,” who was “bright and sporty”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The fisherman, Ethan Clarke, said he heard the teenagers telling the boy “it would be fine” despite telling them he could not swim.<\/p>\n

Mr Clarke said the teenager jumped in and he began to panic as soon as he entered the water.<\/p>\n

He then disappeared under the water at which point the teenagers called for help.<\/p>\n

Tyler Rowland, an off-duty police officer, was paddleboarding with his partner at the beach.<\/p>\n

He noticed a group of seven teenagers at the pier about 19:00 BST, with some in the sea.<\/p>\n

He saw three head back to shore and told the inquest he heard them saying “he’s gone”.<\/p>\n

Mr Rowland said one teenager told him his friend had “gone under the water and not come back up”.<\/p>\n

Mr Rowland jumped off his paddleboard and swam over to the group as they frantically looking for David.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"FamilyFamily photo<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

David’s mother described her son as “beautiful young boy” at the hearing<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The inquest heard he dived down several times before finding David’s body.<\/p>\n

He was helped to carry the body to shore by a nurse called Amy Saunders who was at the beach.<\/p>\n

In a statement read out in court, she described the efforts to rescue David at the beach as “never experiencing trauma like it”.<\/p>\n

The coroner also read a statement from David’s mother, Maria Ejimofor.<\/p>\n

The court heard he won athletics competitions, was a keen weightlifter and made TikTok tutorials on social media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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His mother’s statement said he “achieved so much in his 15 years” and had aspirations to become a doctor.<\/p>\n

She said he could swim after having lessons as a child but he was not confident in the water.<\/p>\n

The statement added “he would not have put himself in a dangerous situation” because he was not a risk taker.<\/p>\n

He often went to the beach because his family lived close by but was always cautious of the sea.<\/p>\n

The inquest continues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Family photo David Ejimofor, 15, died at Aberavon beach, Neath Port Talbot, on 19 June 2023 A teenager who died after jumping into the sea from a pier had told friends he “couldn’t swim”, an inquest has heard. David Ejimofor, 15, died at Aberavon beach, Neath Port Talbot, on 19 June 2023 after joining friends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[10105,3926,1990,1508,2983,3132],"class_list":["post-29258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk","tag-aberavon","tag-drowned","tag-hears","tag-inquest","tag-swim","tag-teen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29260,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29258\/revisions\/29260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}