The father of Ella Mills, the Irish student who drowned in a kayaking incident in the United States last year, has undertaken a gruelling world record attempt to raise funds for the Kevin Bell Trust to help families avoid the “Kafkaesque” nightmare that his family experienced repatriating her body.
Ralph Mills said while his family did not need to avail of the services of the trust because Ella had insurance, they had still experienced bureaucracy which was “very distressing”.
In radio interviews on Tuesday, Mr Mills also spoke about the circumstances surrounding Ella’s death in September 2023. Ms Mills (20), from Clontarf, Dublin had just started at Columbia University as a third-year student as part of the New York university’s dual BA programme with Trinity College Dublin, where she was studying English.
Her father said when she arrived at Columbia she fully embraced life there, joining numerous societies and clubs including the kayaking society which organised the trip on the Potomac river.
“It wasn’t a particularly good choice of river for novice kayakers. And they were going through some difficult rapids, and she came out of the boat and was penned by an aquatic current, a sort of rolling current against the bottom of a rock. And the force of water is just incredible. I mean, tons and tons of water coming down,” he recalled.
“The people present did what they could to rescue her. But having been and seen the scene and actually had a kayak with some of the people who tried to rescue her, it’s quite clear that it was an impossible situation. And she fought and fought and fought. They said she was struggling for two minutes.”
Mr Mills was speaking on Tuesday in radio interviews on Newstalk Breakfast and RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show.
On the repatriation of his daughter’s body, Mr Mills said: “On the surface, it should have been relatively straightforward for us. She died in the administrative capital [Washington DC]. She was fully insured. We had a lot of help from Columbia University and the Garda liaison based in Washington. And he was incredible.
“It was just a Kafkaesque experience of a nightmare. The bureaucracy. I can only imagine families who lose loved ones in more contentious circumstances, or more difficult circumstances. The mind boggles at what it would be like for them. But it was very distressing.
“We didn’t actually need the help [of the Kevin Bell Trust] but we were given that name countless times through this journey. And people were suggesting if we have any trouble, these people have the expertise because they’ve been doing it for a number of years.
“They’ve been helping with the financial burden if people are uninsured, and that can be absolutely crippling. And with the logistical problems of bringing a loved one home. And they have deep expertise in this.”
To raise funds for the trust using a GoFundMe page Mr Mills completed an aqua marathon – running a full marathon in a swimming pool. To break the Guinness world record he completed 844 lengths of a Dublin swimming pool.
“You’re running up and down a swimming pool, it has to be a constant depth. You just keep running up and down for as long as it takes – it was 844 lengths ...
“There’s a sort of, metaphorical significance, I suppose, to the act of trying to run through water to someone coping with grief. And it just seemed quite apposite. I was also practically looking for a hook for the fundraising campaign for the Kevin Bell Trust. And something people had said again and again is you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
Mr Mills said that he liked to imagine that Ella was in front of him easing his way through the water.
The record attempt had been more of a mental challenge that a physical effort, although that too had been gruelling. The date of the event, coincidentally, was the anniversary of the day her family dropped Ella off in New York and said goodbye to her.
“That just happened organically, because I wanted to make the attempt in the summer holidays and get myself as much time as possible. So I just picked the last weekend in August. And it was only then I just realised that that was the date.”
Mr Mills spoke of his daughter’s determination to live in New York having lived there briefly as a child. “She was so single minded in pursuing that.”
He said the family wanted to see her spread her wings and supported her ambitions and always felt that some day she would make a real difference in the world.
“Everyone’s child is deeply special, but there was something, something incredible about Ella. She was about the smartest person I’ve ever met. I would say, from a very, very early age we got this. And the first child will teach the parents how to be parents. And she gave us the most wonderful lesson in being parents. It was utterly joyful, our time with her.”
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