A British man who drowned while swimming off a beach in north-east Spain on Tuesday has been named as Carl Dunlop.
Dunlop, 48, a bus driver from Jarrow, South Tyneside, had been on holiday in Salou with his partner, Joy Potts, 37, and her 12-year-old daughter, Bethany, with whom he was swimming when he got into difficulty.
Paying tribute to her partner as a “hard-working family man”, Potts denied reports in Spanish media that the pair had gone into the water despite red warning flags flying on Llevant beach.
“Carl would never have gone out if he wasn’t supposed to, and he would never put Bethany in danger,” she told the Shields Gazette, adding that there were dozens of other people in the water at the time.
She said she was watching from a sun lounger as the pair waded in until Dunlop was about thigh-deep in the sea and her daughter was in up to her waist. “All of a sudden, I could see Bethany trying to swim back and she had a really panicked look on her face,” Potts said.
“She said it felt like she was swimming for 10 minutes and getting nowhere and she had to claw the sand to get back to the beach. She said she saw Carl looking panicked but then had lost him and I heard people shouting for a lifeguard and when I heard sirens, I just knew they were looking for Carl.”
Potts said after seeing police taping off a section of the beach she ran over to ask if they had seen her partner. Finally officers returned to her with a document from his money belt and asked her to identify Dunlop’s body, she said.
Local media reported that lifeguards recovered Dunlop’s body at about noon, after Potts raised the alarm 10 minutes earlier. Authorities told reporters there was no chance of reviving him.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We can confirm the death of a British national in Salou, Spain, on 6 October. We are providing support to the family at this difficult time.”
Last week two women from Birmingham were swept out to sea while on holiday in Lloret de Mar, a popular resort on the Costa Brava.
One of the women was reportedly trying to rescue her friend after she got into difficulty. Another woman made it back to shore. Police said they had ignored warnings not to go into the sea.