A British dad-of-three and experienced snorkeler died from a rare type of drowning while on holiday in Egypt.
Les Finch, 72, and his wife Martha flew from Manchester Airport to Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt on February 22 of this year. They joined a friend who had previously lived and worked in Egypt, and set out to go diving in an area known as Three Pools.
On February 27, the trio visited a large diving site interconnected by saddles of coral. Les had cut short a swim the day prior after experiencing a bout of coughing, but dismissed it as a cold he had recently recovered from.
His wife Martha, a retired district nurse, had at one point lifted her head above the water and noticed she could not see her husband. Several other divers aided in the search for Les, and he was eventually found, face-down as if still snorkelling, and not breathing.
Les was pulled out of the water as divers began CPR while they waited for an ambulance. But sadly the father could not be saved and was pronounced dead.
An inquest held on Wednesday, April 24, at Preston Coroner's Court heard that Les, 72, who had just renovated a bungalow he and his wife had purchased in Rufford, died from a rare type of drowning.
In a tearful statement to the court, his wife Martha recalled the moment she "panicked" when she couldn't find her husband. She said: "We were swimming round and if you're looking at fish you aren't always aware of what's going on around you or above the water. My friend was already out of the water and I said 'I can't see Les'.
"She said he had swam past her just before. There was quite a few people in the water and I just couldn't see him. I really panicked. I just couldn't see him. Then someone found him. It just looked like someone snorkelling. I went to run in but a man said 'no, don't run in'."
Home Office pathologist Dr Brian Rodgers, a keen snorkeller and scuba diver himself, concluded that Les had died immersion pulmonary oedema - a rare effect of swimming which occurs when the water pressure on a person's body ends up in the chest, causing fluid to leak from the blood vessels into the lungs.
After Les was repatriated to the UK, a CT scan carried out at the Royal Preston Hospital displayed signs of heart disease, but this was not linked to his death, nor did it cause the oedema.
Senior Coroner Dr James Adeley told Martha and her daughters that confirming Les' cause of death proved "a lot more difficult" given that he had been embalmed before being flown back to the UK. This meant analysis of the blood was no longer possible as the embalming fluid replaces the blood.
Speaking of the horror accident, the coroner said: "He is surrounded by lots of people and no one has noticed him in distress and his mask and snorkel were still in place. He hadn't had sufficient time to raise the alarm." He told wife Martha: "There was nothing you could have done to detect his heart disease or nothing you could have seen on holiday that suggested it was dangerous for him to get in the water,"
Les’ cause of death was found to be an immersion pulmonary oedema, with high blood pressure and high cholesterol listed as contributory factors.
Dr Adeley admitted that, despite being a highly experienced coroner, this was the first case he had come across a case of drowning caused by oedema. "In all other cases it's when someone has inhaled water into their lungs," he added.
Martha described Les as a "doting granddad who was laid back and loved life". She added: “He died doing something that he loved and it's a comfort to know he wouldn't have known anything about it.”