A son whose dad drowned in 54 seconds while trying to save the family dog has backed The Mirror’s ‘Save Lives for Sam’ campaign.
Robbie Jones said it took less than a minute for his dad Gareth Jones, 69, to drown after going into the sea off Hove, East Sussex, to save the family’s young cockapoo, Connie. Since the tragedy, his son has become a water safety advocate visiting schools to spread the message,and is speaking out in support of the Mirror’s ‘Save Lives for Sam’ campaign.
He said: “I don’t want another family to suffer with the grief burden, because it’s not just a loss you’re coming to terms with, the harder bit is how it happened. I still can’t believe that happened to my dad. I’ve come to terms with the fact he’s not going to come walking through the door but how he died, that’s what I grapple with still. How it happened and how quickly it happened.”
And Robbie, now aged 30, knows exactly what happened and how it happened because he was allowed to watch the CCTV of the tragedy by police.
He said: “Oddly it was the best experience of the whole thing because I was dealing with facts and evidence. The reality. For me personally, it was better than not knowing. I saw my dad drown and the dog,” Robbie explained, adding “that was my choice. I needed to.”
He described how his dad Gareth, the former head of the BBC’s HR department, was on the beach with a tennis ball and a thrower in January 2021, at the height of lockdown.
“Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. It was the first ball that he threw. The ball had a few bad bounces or the wind took it, he didn’t purposely throw the ball into the sea but that’s where it ended up.”
The dog went tearing into the water to get the ball straight away.
“The dog had no chance, as soon as she entered. You see a fluffy thing and you never saw her again. My dad went in almost immediately and as soon as he went in, it was the drop of the pebbles more than anything that took him.“
Robbie explained the family later returned to the beach 24 hours after he went missing and saw their was a ‘blind’ drop and it “was very deep, about 7ft.” “He obviously went into the water thinking he could just pull the dog out but not knowing the drop was so huge,” Robbie explained.
“As soon as he entered, you could see him trying to get back out again. He knew he wasn’t going to make it, he turns round almost instantly and scrambles to try and get out.”
Gareth had been walking his dog very near the private beach called ‘Millionaire’s Row’ in Brighton, “where Zoe Ball had a home”.
He said: “There were two waves that just hit him on the right shoulder and then a third wave and you never see him again. The third wave fizzed off his shoulder like a champagne bottle. The whole CCTV video was 54 seconds and then you never see him again.
“It took him just 54 seconds to die and he was a fit guy who played tennis and was a competent swimmer. This could happen to anyone. Someone said at the time your dad was a force of nature, taken by a force of nature.”
Hundreds of local people joined emergency services to search for Gareth and Connie. The dog was eventually found a day later on Brighton Beach. Then two days later, on January 18, the dad-of-three’s body was found 18 miles in the opposite direction at Tide Mills, near Newhaven.
Robbie explained how his dad had left the family home at noon to walk Connie and fetch their fish tea, a family tradition on a Saturday. But when he hadn’t returned by 4pm, Robbie and his mum went out to look for him as they had been due to watch the football together.
“Four or five hours had passed and something didn’t sit right with me. I said to mum; ‘something’s not right, I’m driving down to the fish shop’.“ But when he got there, the shop and the car park were shut for the day and there was no sign of his dad or the dog.
“That’s when the alarm bells really rang. We rang the hospitals, rang our closest friends. We had hundreds of people come out looking for him. I rang my two older sisters and they got in their cars and got down there immediately.
“We sorted out our own search party. It was like something out of a BBC drama, I remember standing on Brighton promenade, standing there looking at the sky with drones above. RNLI boats were out and five police cars were all looking for my dad. It was surreal.
“It was like something out of a crime thriller on the telly but it was happening to us. We thought maybe he’d had a heart attack. You feel utterly helpless, the good news is that that’s probably the worst I will ever feel in my entire life.“
Connie was found on the sand by a passer by, covered in sand after drowning, and his dad was also found by a passerby, lying on the shoreline on Monday morning. Robbie, who was 24 years old when he lost his dad, said they were ‘extremely close’.
“It had a huge impact. The worst bit is how this happened to a man of such kindness, intellect, warmth, generosity,” he said. “He was fantastically fun-spirited and a thoroughly morally decent man.”
Robbie, who now lives in Cardiff where his dad came from, has toured schools spreading the water safety message, stressing the ‘float to live’ advice from the RNLI and urging people not to be tempted to go in after pets – or loved ones.
“What the advice ultimately is obviously is don’t go in after a loved one or a dog, that is not the best thing to do. Nine out of 10 dogs get out by themselves, so don’t go in, even for a child, even a loved one, even a stranger, just don’t go in.
“You must call 999 if you see someone in trouble. The RNLI have the kit, they have the coastguards, the lifeguards, they have expertise and the experience so leaving it to them would be the obvious advice. Take this campaign seriously because it could be you or one of your loved ones and I don’t want anyone to go through the way, me, my family and our friends have.”
Ashley Jones, Royal life Savers Society UK’s Head of Water Safety and Education, said: “We know jumping in to rescue a person or a pet in trouble is an instinctive reaction to help, however, this makes two casualties. Far too often there are reports of two people drowning when someone without lifeguard training and rescue experience went in.
“Instead you should call 999 and keep watch on the person or pet. If it is safe to do so, reach for them with a stick, tied up jumper, or rescue pole. You could also try to throw something that floats to them.” –
