People videoing drowning of man in Cork city ‘very very sad’, says Taoiseach

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has condemned the actions of some onlookers who stood filming on their phones and did not intervene as a man drowned in the River Lee on Wednesday evening.

The body of the man, who has since been named as 33-year-old Luke Hyde, was recovered from the river after a search and recovery operation was launched.

The alarm had been raised at around 7pm on Wednesday after two men went swimming in the northern channel of the river at Pope’s Quay. Both got into difficulty, with one managing to get to safety and raise the alarm, but his friend sank and was carried downstream.

Victor Shine, second officer at Cork City Fire Brigade, described the incident as “a terrible tragedy”.

He told The Echo that a large number of people were recording Mr Hyde in difficulty and the rescue operation. Some people had live-streamed the tragic incident online.

Mr Shine said: “People were recording, photographing, and videoing the whole event — during the operation, crowds were encroaching into the area of rescue and had to be literally pushed back.

“People were lifting the cordon and coming under it to get a better look — this type of thing is getting worse lately. In the past, people would have appreciated the cordon was there for a reason.

“The mother of the man ran down to the scene, and she saw what was going on with the crowds all gathered and recording — it was awful.”

Condemning this behaviour, Mr Martin said incidences of people filming tragedies was “a very regrettable feature of modern life”.

“It is horrendous what happened,” he said. “I read what the fire officer said, that they found it very difficult to comprehend, that there was no lifebuoys thrown in to help, that people were taking photographs, or videoing, and for family members that’s very traumatic, and it’s very, very sad.”

Mr Martin said it was important to remember that many people are often very brave and do the right thing, but “notwithstanding the modern era, I think that dignity and decorum are essential values we should retain, particularly when people are in distressful situation, and in that situation where a person is actually drowning.”

Speaking on The Neil Prendeville Show on Cork’s RedFM yesterday, Elizabeth Hyde, mother of the deceased man, said this was the second son she had lost in five years, and that the memory of people livestreaming his death “will never leave me”.

When she heard the news, she said she “ran down the street screaming”, and saw the amount of people with their phones out recording as he was pulled from the water.

She asked why those who filmed didn’t “try and get something to save him, a life buoy or something”, adding: “I don’t know if I’ll ever come through this, my son drowning and all those people watching on — I hope they’re listening to this broken-hearted mother.”