A MARRIED couple in their eighties drowned at Guardamar del Segura’s central beach on Thursday.
The man, 87, and woman, 85, from Madrid were on holiday in Alicante province.
The double tragedy unfolded shortly after 10am at the southern end of the Guardamar promenade with a green flag indicating that the sea was safe for bathing.
The husband had gone for a swim when his wife noticed that he was floating in the water.
He had suffered a heart attack and when she went into the sea and found him unresponsive, she also went into a cardiorespiratory arrest.
Once a family member realised that neither of them had come out of the water, on duty lifeguards from the Cruz Roja pulled the couple onto the beach.
The lifeguards and paramedics spent 40 minutes trying to resuscitate them but they were pronounced dead.
Six people have now died on Guardamar’s beaches this summer with four fatalities within three days at La Roqueta beach in early June, before the lifeguard service started for the high season.
A British tourist, 52, and a Polish national,46, lost their lives when they went into the sea to save two children, aged 6 and 7, who had got into difficulty but ended up being fine.
The other incidents saw the deaths of an Israeli man, 68, and a 77-year-old Spaniard.
