The mother of a Cork man who drowned in the river Lee on Wednesday evening has condemned the behaviour of people who filmed the emergency services recovering his body after doing nothing to assist him when he got into difficulty.
Luke Hyde (34), from Wolfe Tone Street in Cork, drowned after he got into difficulties while swimming across the north channel of the river Lee from Pope’s Quay to Lavitt’s Quay at around 6.45pm on Wednesday evening.
The incident was filmed by onlookers on their phones, with some live-streaming the tragedy.
Mr Hyde’s mother, Lily Hyde, rang in to the Neil Prendeville Show on Cork’s Red FM to express her disgust that people could stand on the quayside and film her son drown and not come to his aid and then film his body being removed from the river.
‘You get obsessed’: Lunch at Chapter One with arguably one of the world’s best food writers
Adam Loughnane asked for help at a Galway hospital. Three hours later he was dead
In The Settlers, Louis Theroux does something we have rarely seen him do in 30 years of TV
Black Axe gang behind bank account takeover fraud swells to network of 1,600 people in Ireland
Ms Hyde told how she heard the Irish Coast Guard helicopter overhead as it swept up and down the river Lee, so she rang her son’s mobile to know if he was okay, only for it to be answered by a garda.
“Luke ... was my baby son. I was disgusted when I heard you talking this morning about those people down there. It was like a circus, watching my son drown, instead of trying to help him,” said Ms Hyde, who lost another son, Brian, when he died in his sleep in 2019.
“When I got down, they were putting him into the ambulance and I saw the crowds, I didn’t know what was going on. I said I need to hold my boy, I need to see him. I don’t know what his last thought or words were. I was thinking, ‘Did he call my name?’”
“What have people in this world come to? Morons, I don’t think there’s even a word to describe them. It will never leave me, and the clips I saw on the news ... I don’t know how I’ll ever, ever forget it. I never will, it will live with me for evermore.”
Taoiseach Micheál Martin extended his sympathies to the family of Mr Hyde and also criticised onlookers’ behaviour. “It’s a very sad and regrettable feature of modern life. We have mobile phones and devices. It was a horrendous what happened, and my understanding is two fellows went in for a swim, both got into difficulty, and one was able to get out and raise the alarm.
“I read what the fire officer said, that they found it very difficult to comprehend that there were no lifebuoys thrown in to help, but people were taking photographs or videoing and for family members, it’s very traumatic, and it’s very, very sad.”
Cork City Fire Brigade second officer Victor Shine said he hoped the tragedy would bring home to people the importance of assisting in such situations and not just adding to a family’s pain by filming it.
“There were hundreds of people down there watching – they were a couple of people deep up along Pope’s Quay, across the Shandon Footbridge and down Lavitt’s Quay. There are three lifebuoys on either quay, and only one person threw one in to help the first guy.
“It’s awful but hopefully it will open people’s eyes as to the consequences of such behaviour. We are trying to wake people up – help if you can help, and don’t just be highlighting somebody’s tragedy and adding to their pain and trauma by filming and posting it.”
