British grandfather drowns in Florida off beach 'with no safety flags'
British grandfather drowns in Florida off beach 'with no safety flags'
Mark Gosling got caught in a riptide
The inquest took place at Winchester Coroner's Court
(Image: Alamy/PA )
A coroner has said she will write to the authorities in Florida to express concerns over beach safety flags after a 74-year-old grandfather drowned while swimming in the sea. Mark Gosling, from Lymington in the New Forest, Hampshire, was on holiday on Anna Marie Island in the US state with his wife Caroline when he got caught in a riptide.
In a statement read to the Winchester inquest, Mrs Gosling said they had gone for their morning walk on the beach on May 18 2024 when her husband went for a swim and started jumping in the waves.
She said: 'I sat and watched him from a bench. When I noticed he had gone further up the beach, I went back down nearer the water.
'I then noticed his head had gone back having turned upside down, he may not have realised there was a riptide and he wasn't as strong as he thought he was despite being a competent sailor and swimmer.'
Mrs Gosling said she called for help, and a man went into the water and retrieved her husband and began performing CPR on him, but he was later pronounced dead in the hospital. She added that there were no sea safety flags on the stretch of beach where they were staying.
Mrs Gosling said: 'The flags they displayed noting the sea conditions are only located in one place and not where we were staying.'
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Coroner Rosamund Rhodes-Kemp said that a post-mortem examination carried out in Florida showed that the father-of-two died of drowning. Recording a conclusion of accidental death, she said that she intended to write to the authorities in Florida to raise the family's concerns about beach safety.
She said: 'I could issue a prevention of future deaths report if this was in the UK. I do not know if anyone is going to take any notice in Florida but I could write a letter of concern to the authorities for them to consider putting up more flags more frequently on this stretch of coast.'
The inquest heard that Mr Gosling was born in Malta while his parents were posted there by the navy before they moved to Brixham and then the New Forest. He started his working life as a naval architect before working in the marine world and then in finance before retiring.
Mrs Gosling said: 'He has always been an active person, never sitting still for long, he loved his family, he was kind, loving and loved.'
Ms Rhodes-Kemp said that Mr Gosling had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2020 and had an aortic valve replacement before then being diagnosed with Alzheimer's but was 'generally fit' at the time.
She said: 'His attitude was that you should live life as much as you can while you can.'
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The couple's daughter, Lucie Gosling-Myers, said: 'He never wanted to be a burden and always wanted quality of life, we have done our best to see it as a kindness in some ways.'
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