A summer field trip to a river beach in northern Portugal ended in tragedy yesterday (August 13) when a 15-year-old drowned trying to recover a football.
Pedro Arado was part of a group of 12 youngsters having a day out with Porto’s Instituto Profissional do Terço – an organisation that looks after “children and young people from vulnerable families” reports Jornal de Notícias.
He and a friend were warned not to go after their ball as it floated out of reach on the Adaúfe river, near Braga, said the paper, adding that Pedro’s older brother witnessed the tragedy from the shore.
The brother told JN that his sibling screamed “I’m stuck” before disappearing.
The teen’s body was found two hours later.
With the Public Prosecutors Office purportedly considering whether or not to launch an investigation, the head of the local parish council blamed the accident on failure to follow beach rules.
Agostinho Fernandes added that this was the river beach’s first fatality in 14 years.
