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Deadly weekend claims five at Swedish beaches

Five people drowned across Sweden at the weekend, including a grandmother and her grandson, as record warmth drew Swedes to the country's still chilly waters.

Published: 28 May 2012 07:14 CEST

Deadly weekend claims five at Swedish beaches

On Saturday, a 68-year-old woman drowned while trying to save her two grandsons who had strayed too far from a beach in southern Stockholm.

While she managed to pull one of the boys to shore, the woman then died trying to save the second grandson.

The boy was eventually pulled from the water and rushed to hospital, but died later that evening.

The deadly weekend has prompted a warning from the Swedish Life Saving Society (Svenska Livräddningssällskapet – SLS) cautioning would-be bathers about misjudging exactly how cold Swedish waters are.

“When the weather is nice, there are a lot of people who want to go swimming because they think the water is fine. But it’s still quite cold and the body can become chilled quickly at such temperatures,” Anders Wernesten of the SLS told the TT news agency.

The group predicts that 2012 is on its way to becoming a tough year when it comes to Sweden’s drowning statistics.

“We’re already seeing that the number of accidents this year is going to surpass last year’s figures,” said Wernesten.

The final weekend in May turned out to be an especially deadly one at Sweden’s bathing areas.

In addition to the drowning deaths of the 68-year-old grandmother and her 7-year-old grandson in Stockholm, a man who went out for a swim at the Bergsjö bathing area in Gothenburg also died on Saturday evening.

Also in western Sweden, an elderly woman drowned in Varberg, while a man in his forties was found lifeless in the water near Alingsås.

“It’s important to stay close to shore and try to keep your body temperature up if you fall in the water without a life jacket. But the most important things is to be in the company of others and not to go swimming alone,” said Wernesten.

TT/The Local/dl

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Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021

Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The battle for custody of Eitan Biran, the sole survivor of the May accident that killed 14 people, has captured headlines since his maternal grandfather, Shmulik Peleg, brought him to Israel on a private jet last month.

The child lost his parents, younger brother and great-grandparents in the May 23 accident near the top of the Mottarone mountain in the northwestern Piedmont region, where the family was out on a Sunday excursion to the scenic spot served by the cable car.

The cable car’s pull cable snapped just before it reached destination. It then flew backwards, dislodging itself from a second, supporting cable, and crashed to the ground.

Investigations later revealed that emergency brakes that could have stopped the car on its supporting cable, avoiding the tragedy, had been deliberately deactivated to avoid delays following a technical malfunction.

Three individuals responsible for the cable car’s management were subsequently arrested.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14. MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP.

Peleg has insisted that he drove Eitan from Italy to Switzerland before jetting him back to Israel – instead of returning him paternal aunt Aya Biran, who lives in northern Italy – because Eitan’s late parents wanted him to be raised in the Jewish state.

But Peleg has become the subject kidnapping probe by Italian prosecutors and Israeli police questioned him over those allegations last month.

A statement Monday from the Tel Aviv court where Aya Biran had filed a complaint said judges “did not accept the grandfather’s claim that the aunt has no custody rights”.

It recognised an Italian judgement that established Biran as a legitimate guardian and said Peleg had “unlawfully” removed the boy from his aunt’s care.

The court “ordered the return of the minor to his usual place of residence in Italy”.

The court also found that “a connection” between the surviving members of the Italy- and Israel-based relatives was in Eitan’s “best interests”.

Peleg was also ordered to pay Biran’s legal fees, amounting to 70,000 shekels ($22,000).

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Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021.

Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The case has stirred emotions in Israel, and throngs of journalists had surrounded the Tel Aviv court for hearings last month, with some pro-Peleg protesters insisting it was wrong to send a Jewish child out of Israel.

Before judges ordered the sides to stop talking to the media, Peleg told Israel’s Channel 12 in September that his grandson was “in the place where he is supposed to be, in his home, in Israel.”

Eitan and his parents, Amit Biran and Tal Peleg, had been living in Italy, where Amit Biran was studying medicine, together with their other child, Tom.

Eitan suffered severe chest and abdominal injuries and spent a week in intensive care after the May accident that occurred when a cable snapped on the aerial tram bringing weekend visitors to the top of the Piedmont region’s Mottarone mountain.

The accident was one of Italy’s worst in over two decades.

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