A carer was forced to choose who to save when she and two people in her care were dragged into deep water at a north-west Tasmanian beach, a coroner has found.
The 22-year-old woman, who had cerebral palsy and couldn’t swim, drowned on November 11, 2023, after being caught in strong currents near the Cam River mouth at Somerset Beach, west of Burnie.
The carer was playing in the shallows with the woman and a younger child when the group drifted into deeper water. All three lost their footing.
“[She] was left with the unenviable choice of deciding who to save,” Coroner Leigh Mackey found.
“She feared all three of them would drown.”
The carer grabbed both the 22-year-old woman and the younger child, attempting to swim them to shore.
But she was tiring and “felt the pull of the sea sending them deeper”, the coroner said.
The carer felt the 22-year-old had “already drowned” – she was heavy and her eyes had rolled back.
She made the split-second decision to let go and save the younger child.
By the time they reached shore, the woman had disappeared beneath the water.
An extensive search involving police, surf lifesavers, drones and helicopters found nothing. Her body washed up on a beach 4.5km away two weeks later.
The woman had experienced severe trauma throughout her life.
She had cerebral palsy from birth complications, suffered severe burns as an infant and was sexually assaulted shortly after her mother died.
Despite her disabilities, she loved going to the beach two to three times a week.
Her carer had planned to arrange formal swimming lessons through the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), but they hadn’t eventuated.
The carer described the woman as having her own “unique way of swimming” and said she had been learning to float.
Witnesses noted strong currents at the river mouth that day.
The beach wasn’t patrolled – surf lifesavers only monitor it on summer weekends from December to March.
Coroner Mackey ruled the death an accidental drowning and made no recommendations.
