Three women's bodies found in the sea at Brighton

[BlackTogetherAgain]

This is absolutely heartbreaking.

Why didn't anyone report three women were missing?

If it's a Channel crossing, from what I understand, it's rare that women go on the boats from France, and when they do they are pushed to the back / bottom, where the risk of being crushed is high.

If it's not a crossing, what on earth has happened?

Words can't express how evil this is.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cwyg508gg28t

i am surprised there arent more deaths, the sea is dangerous

Well said.

45 people died in Brighton in 2023 wholly caused by alcohol consumption.

They were first noticed at 5.45 a.m, so they could easily have gone in when it was light.

A PP and I have been round that area recently and noticed no signs. Not to say they aren't there, but they need to be bigger and better.

Totally agree about the public info ads. They were indeed petrifying. Remember the HIV one???

If Gareth Jones had been aware of the stats and also aware of that deep shelf, and how difficult it is to get out, he might not have gone in after his dog. (Stats are that rescuers commonly drown.)

The safety advice about dogs is that they often get out on their own and you should stay out of the water but call to them, to orientate them.

Of course, it's a different matter when it's your own dog, I know.

There is 15km of coastline, yes, but it's around the pier that many accidents happen.

I mean, people are losing their lives. The council can't just go "Oh, the current signage is fine" or "More signage won't work." They need to try.

My Mum jokes she didn’t have to worry about safe sex talks with us as we all so petrified after the HIV/AIDS campaign. It was terrifying.

There was also that one about playing on the railway?

To be fair I do overemphasis how dangerous rivers/seas and lakes are to
my kids. You can’t be too careful.

Exactly - that ad was terrifying! And then the campaign was stopped, and non-condom use rose accordingly.

There are no signs with a diagram showing the underwater shelf. There should be the red triangle with water showing the shelf and a stick person taking a step and falling into deep water. I am sure I've seen such signs elsewhere.

It is not enough to just say Danger. THIS kind of thing is what's needed:

This is exactly what is needed. On the beach or the promenade next to the beach (not just the upper pavement area).

I saw someone on insta saying that it’s three black women and that there are lots of instances of black people being found dead at bodies of water and nobody investigates, it’s always said that it was an accident.

I was thinking about it and wondering.

I saw a black kid from London nearly drown at Brighton, the lifeguards saved him. I wonder if there is just something about people living in London and not having swimming lessons or knowing the dangers of the sea.

I hope it’s not anything sinister

Agreed - that signage in the busiest areas of the beaches close to town and clubs would be a good idea.

It would definitely put you off paddling or thinking you could wade out a bit for a dip.

I don’t think it’s anything sinister.

It’s hard to word this correctly but it is a similar situation here by the Thames. Various potential barriers to learning to be a strong swimmer come in to play. Such as socio-economic factors. Systemic inequalities in access to facilities.

There are various organisations working to improve the situation as there shouldn’t be such a disparity.

I don’t think this is the case in this context. Apparently black women are less likely to be able to swim than white people (my Bajan friend brought up half in UK and half in Barbados can swim very well), I think there were efforts to try to save them but due to the time of day and the fact that that part of the sea is very rough they just couldn’t be saved. I do think that these poor women going on social media talk are most likely to be British Afro Caribbean. And if anything more needs to be done to encourage them (black people) to learn to swim in the UK. There are swimming pools in places like eg Brixton/Clapham but how many kids get taken to them for lessons I don’t know. There are special sessions for Muslim women (or just women) at a local pool.

Yes, it's well known that e.g. black young people joining the Army (male and female) are less likely to be able to swim than their white counter parts. That may reflect relative levels of deprivation, and be a problem that should be tackled, but that's why they're more like to drown, nothing more sinister.

Is this the case in the UK? I have heard of this in America, where distances to places are long and where they don't have council pools. But neither of these things are the case in Britain.

Even if you can swim, you're no match for what can happen in the sea. Gareth Jones was a strong swimmer. There's also cold water shock, which renders you pretty much immobile.

I swim at Brighton almost daily
-ALL year round Locals’don’t call it a death trap. It’s as safe as any seafront in decent weather. Low tide there is often loads of sand to walk along. But yes - high tide, it’s a shingle beach and the shelving can very much vary according to storms etc.

There IS signage. At every point that you approach the beaches all the way along. For miles. But revellers, at dawn, coming from a club or similar aren’t likely to pay much attention.
There are signs about keeping off the groynes - visitors go on the groynes. There are warnings about tides, about safety, about who to call in an emergency, about calling 999 not going in the water to help
someone. Warnings about be careful near the waters edge. There are emergency rings that can be thrown. There are life guard huts. There are flag warnings for bad weather or unsafe areas as well as flags for safer areas.

Yes I know there are signs but we were discussing the above signs showing the deep shelf and drop off.

Except -theres not an ‘underwater shelf’
as such. At low/ lower tide you’re walking along flat sand. At highest tides the water come much further up to where people would usually sit which is steep.
And yes the signs do warn that the water at highest tide does/
can get deep quickly.
None of which, unfortunately, have prevented these poor women from drowning. I was on the beach that morning, bright, sunny, but windy and the rolling surf alone should have kept anyone from thinking a paddle or swim was a good idea. Regardless of which bit of the beach they were at. Getting out would have been difficult.
Not perhaps something that would have been the first thing someone with impaired judgment would have considered.

Oh for heavens sake I saw that guy on Insta as well and he had absolutely no information to back up his claims. Just click baiting.

if you swim every day in the sea the shelf would make no difference to you, since you will be swimming rather than walking.

Locals have recently described Brighton beach as a death trap

I am local and this is simply not true. Its possible one person might have come out with something melodramatic but that doesnt mean "all locals" think the same thing any more than one person from London is speaking on behalf of ALL Londoners.

If Brightonians really thought this then the sea wouldn't be full of swimmers on nice sunny days and the sea is ALWAYS full of people swimming in summer.

What they have been referring to is the highly unwise choice to go in rough choppy, freezing cold seas in the dark which is what these girls sadly did. That wasnt a wise choice and indicates to me that alcohol was involved.

People clearly are completed befuddled by the term ‘shelf’ - it’s not some permanent marker/part of the beach that one drops off.
its just a way to describe the different water levels .

Yes - people totally underestimate the effects of cold water shock.

My kids went to school in Sweden and there was a big emphasis of water safety (you had to swim 200 metres and learn basic life saving to pass year 6). In high school they had to learn how to rescue themselves from going through the ice on frozen water by simulating the experience - jumping through a hole in the ice, shouting for help and dragging themselves out.

But locals have said that the area where this happened gets really choppy and is unsafe to go in swimming.