Coroner's warning after coast tragedy; 17-year-old died 'tombstoning' in the North Sea.Byline: Sonia Sharma ACORONER urged youngsters not to put their lives at risk leaping into the sea following the death of a teenager. Jamie Sutton was killed after he jumped from 30ft cliffs near Souter Point Lighthouse lighthouse, towerlike structure erected to give guidance and warning to ships and aircraft by either visible or radioelectrical means. Lighthouses were long built to conform in structure to their geographical location. Until the beginning of the 19th cent. , in South Tyneside South Tyneside is a metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear in North East England. It is bordered by four other boroughs - Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead to the west, Sunderland in the south, and North Tyneside to the north. , in May. The 17-year-old, of Rose Crescent, Whitburn, was with a group of friends. After leaping from what is known locally as The Shelf, he went under water briefly before coming back up to the surface. He then appeared to be struggling and shouted for help. Emergency services emergency services Emergency care '…services …necessary to prevent death or serious impairment of health and, because of the danger to life or health, require the use of the most accessible hospital available and equipped to furnish those services' were called to the scene and took him to South Tyneside District Hospital but were unable to revive him. Now people are being warned not to dice with death by participating in the dangerous craze. At an inquest inquest, in law, a body of men appointed by law to inquire into certain matters. The term also refers to the inquiry itself as well as to the findings of the inquiry. in South Tyneside yesterday, coroner Terence Carney car·ney n. Informal Variant of carny. recorded a verdict of accidental death. He added: "I am satisfied from the evidence that this was a young man who was ultimately having fun. "He was seeking to do something which he felt quite capable of being able to achieve. "Unfortunately he made an error of judgement and as a consequence of that suffered an awful penalty. "We have seen quite a lot of young people from time to time doing things which are highly dangerous. "I'm certain there's an element of danger in what these young people are doing. I have no hesitation in saying that jumping from these points into the sea is something indeed to be deterred. "Quite clearly there are dangers in these types of things and they should, in fact, be deterred. Young people should not put themselves at risk. "If anything is going to be conducted as a dangerous sport, it should be done only when appropriate risk and measurements have been made to ensure a sad outcome is not witnessed." Coroner Carney did not call Jamie's friends to give evidence at the inquest. He decided he did not want to put the youngsters, aged between 13 and 15, through the trauma of re-living the incident. But he read out statements in which the children described how Jamie had jumped into the water. Two of the group were his cousins. They told how their mate, who had been wearing a wet suit, took a run and plunged from the cliffs, entering the water feet first. He got into trouble and started shouting for help. But he lost consciousness and was pulled out by a lifeboat crew. Home Office pathologist Dr Stuart Hamilton carried out a post-mortem examination and found that water had entered the boy's lungs. The cause of death was drowning. The Marine and Coastguard Agency has since been running a campaign warning people against activities like tombstoning and pier jumping. |
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