With mom by side, 15-year-old swimmer dies in Salt Lake poo
KOLKATA: A 15-year-old swimmer died on Tuesday morning while practicing the art of underwater swimming next to her mother — herself a national-level swimmer — at a Salt Lake swimming pool.
Doctors suspect this to be a case of sudden cardiac death (SCD) but cops are awaiting a postmortem report to ascertain the actual cause of death.
Aleina Dutta Bhattacharya, a class X student of a New Town school and a resident of Salt Lake AE Block, was a trained swimmer who had been undertaking swimming lessons since 2015 at the Olympic-standard swimming pool opposite to Bikash Bhavan.
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Her mother, Dalia, too was taking lessons along with her in underwater swimming around 9 am when the incident happened.
Family members said that she had no past ailments that could have triggered the cardiac arrest.
With mom by side, 15-yr-old swimmer dies in Salt Lake pool
“She had recently started practicing underwater swimming. On Tuesday, she was under water for close to a minute. While others practicing with her had come up to the surface by the time set by the trainer, she didn’t come up. Her mother and others dived deep looking for her and found her unconscious in the deepest portion of the pool,” said Gouranga Lal Dutta, Areina’s grandfather, who is also a trained swimmer.
Both of Aleina’s parents are techies and are expert swimmers. Aleina has a younger sister who is in class IV and practices swimming at the same pool.
Swimmer
Sources said Aleina was found unconscious in a seated posture, resting on her back with her legs crossed at the deep end of the pool. She was applied cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) before she was rushed to a private hospital less than 500 metres away but doctors declared her dead on arrival.
TOI visited the Bidhannagar Swimming Association after the incident, where employees said the pool had been shut after the incident. According to the officials of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation — the custodian of the pool — all precautionary measures had been followed before allowing the girl into the pool.
“We check the medical backgrounds of all members periodically. The girl had no ailment. She was an expert swimmer.
On Tuesday, she and her mother were undergoing breathing endurance training when she developed complications,” said BMC MMiC (sports) Aratrika Bhattacharjee.
Sources said the girl was possibly preparing for fin-swimming — an underwater sport consisting of four techniques involving swimming with the use of fins either by holding one’s breath or using open-circuit scuba diving equipment — for which the girl had even received accolades at national-level competitions held in Pune.
Bengal Amateur Swimming Association president Ramanuj Mukherjee expressed grief while saying that the incident was extremely rare.
Doctors said that SCD in young kids could be due to undetected heart anomalies. “Underlying heart anomalies like long QT syndrome that cause chaotic heart beats, conditions like different channelopathy, can cause SCD. Even some drugs can cause malignant fatal arrhythmia in the form of Torsade Pointes,” said Saroj Mondal, professor of cardiology, SSKM Hospital.
(With inputs from
Suman Chakraborti & Sumati Yengkhom)
Tamaghna Banerjee, a reporter from Kolkata, covers crime, aviation, human rights and politics. He has a keen interest in human interest and rural reporting. He has done his postgraduation in journalism and mass communication. He has a total of 14 years in journalism.Read More.
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