A British holidaymaker has died in hospital after being pulled from a Spanish hotel swimming pool in a ‘critical condition’.
The woman was in cardiac arrest when she was pulled from the pool in Lanzarote and revived at the scene by a lifeguard and emergency responders.
Police on the island confirmed today she had lost her fight for life after being rushed to Doctor Jose Molina Hospital in the island capital.
A routine investigation into her death, coordinated by a local court, is now underway.
The alarm was raised just before 5pm on Thursday by staff at the four-star HL Rio Playa.
The dead woman is understood to have been staying at the hotel with her partner.
The woman was in cardiac arrest when she was pulled from the pool in Lanzarote and revived at the scene by a lifeguard and emergency responders
There were conflicting reports about her age, as she was initially said to have been aged 35 in a statement put out by an emergency response coordination centre whereas police sources have said she was 58.
One well-placed source said: ‘It all happened so quickly.
‘The lifeguard pulled her out of the water and stabilised her with CPR but sadly she died shortly after arriving at hospital.’
Health sources confirmed she had died in A&E at Doctor Jose Molina Hospital.
A Civil Guard source also confirmed the British woman’s death, adding: ‘A routine investigation is underway but there is nothing pointing to any criminality in what happened.
‘The investigating court will be sent the post mortem results and will instruct police to carry out any further inquiries if it is deemed appropriate.
‘The autopsy will shed more light on what exactly occurred.’
In a statement released before it emerged the British woman had died, a spokesman for a regional government-run emergency coordination centre said: ‘A 35-year-old British woman was pulled from the water after going into cardiac arrest and symptoms of near-drowning at a hotel in Playa Blanca in the municipality of Yaiza.
Police on the island confirmed today she had lost her fight for life after being rushed to Doctor Jose Molina Hospital in the island capital
‘The alarm was raised just before 5pm on Thursday.
‘She was taken by ambulance to Doctor Jose Molina Orosa in a critical condition.’
Playa Blanca, on the south side of Lanzarote, is considered to be the third largest tourist area on the island.
It has one of the best pleasure ports on the island and is close to the Papagayo beaches with their white sand and crystalline waters.
At the end of last month two youngsters on holiday with their families died within hours of each other following separate Spanish swimming pool tragedies.
A child aged three drowned at a pool in Pilar de la Horadada near Torrevieja on the Costa Blanca, around 9pm on August 27.
Local reports said a second youngster aged six believed to be a relative had discovered the boy in the water and alerted his parents.
Emergency responders tried without success for nearly an hour to save his life when they reached the scene. The youngster was French.
The incident, at a house on a residential estate called Pinar de Campoverde, happened hours after a four-year-old boy who was rescued from a pool at a water park in Tarragona 300 miles north, lost his fight for life in hospital.
The alarm was raised just before 5pm on Thursday by staff at the four-star HL Rio Playa (pictured)
The youngster had been admitted to the city’s Joan XXIII Hospital four days earlier.
He was assisted after being pulled out of a pool at the Aquopolis Costa Dorada near Salou as the water park was about to close.
The Pilar de la Horadada drowning was the fourth in a month in a Costa Blanca swimming pool which had claimed the life of a young child.
On July 29 a Dutch girl aged four drowned at a pool in Calpe north of Benidorm at the northern end of the famous stretch of coastline.
On August 5 a four-year-old Belgian boy was found floating in a pool at a relative’s house in the Brit-popular area of Ciudad Quesada near Torrevieja where his parents had made a stopover.
They had only arrived hours earlier and were due to stay the night before continuing to Castellon further north.
Local reports said one one of his relatives, described as a nurse, jumped into the pool to pull him out and emergency responders spent nearly 45 minutes trying to revive him without success.
On August 9 a two-year-old boy drowned at his parents’ holiday villa in nearby La Zenia.
His body was discovered by his teenage sister.
The French family had only just arrived at the villa two days before the tragedy.
Initial reports at the time pointed to the boy, one of five children, drowning after leaving the villa unnoticed while the rest of the family was inside.