A 50-year-old British woman was reported to have drowned on Saturday at the Dragão Vermelho (Red Dragon) beach, on Costa da Caparica, south of Lisbon – while elsewhere on the same day a Portuguese man and a Portuguese woman drowned in separate incidents and a 16-year-old Portuguese youth was reported missing in a river with a “history of tragedy”
Considering that data for last year registered only seven drownings during the entire holiday beach season, 2015 has got off to a bad start.
Reports point to the fact that, in the case of the British woman, the beach did not have a lifeguard.
The woman’s body is understood to have been sighted around 1pm on Saturday.
The Dragão Vermelho beach, on Costa da Caparica, Almada, was “full” as the country enjoyed soaring temperatures and everyone who could made for the water.
Eyewitnesses described how a surfer got to the woman first – followed by a lifeguard called in from an adjoining beach.
The two men “worked” on the woman for “almost an hour”, with concerned beachgoers also trying everything they could to save her.
Correio da Manhã describes rescuers’ anguish as the woman “had a pulse” when she was brought to shore and “vomited various times” as people tried to revive her.
CM said the victim had been in the company of “a group of compatriots” who were all in a bar close by.
Authorities have put the death down to a possible “congestion” as the woman’s body was taken for autopsy at Lisbon’s Garcia d’Orta hospital.
The other deaths by drowning were reported to have taken place in Vila Real and involved a 38- year-old Portuguese man, at Ribeira de Pena, and a 69-year-old Portuguese woman, understood to have died in a canal accessing the Vidago dam.
And late this afternoon (Sunday), a teenager was reported missing after falling off a lilo in the Cávado river, in Barcelos – a waterway known for being treacherous.
Searches for the boy were still ongoing after 8pm this evening.
