An appeal for witnesses has been launched after this pretty Russian 19-year-old was pulled unconscious from a Turkish dolphinarium and security tapes of the incident were allegedly mysteriously erased.
Medics confirmed that Olga Desyatova, 19, died yesterday (Tuesday) after being flown in a coma back to Russia following the accident at the Sealanya Seapark in Turkey where guests pay 100 euros a time to swim with dolphins.
The young woman from Moscow was admitted to the Sklifosovsky Research Institute hospital in the Russian capital in a critical condition where doctors were unable to save her life. She had reportedly been swimming with exotic fish at the time although it was not revealed whether this included or had included the dolphins.
She was on holiday in Anatolia in Turkey with her mother when the pair decided to visit the city’s dolphinarium. She was pulled from the water unconscious after getting into difficulties. According to local media it was other visitors to the park which spotted her body and pulled her ashore.
After eight days with no improvement in her condition, Turkish doctors gave permission for her to be moved from intensive care flown back to Russia in an air ambulance. But she did not show any signs of brain activity and never recovered, according to local media.
Olga had been a a second-year student at the Russian National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
In order to try and find out what happened, her family requested copies of the surveillance tapes but were told all of the footage from the various cameras was no longer available. No explanation was given as to why it was apparently erased.
On the Russian social media network VK, a netizen named as ‘Irina Senkovskaya’, who is reportedly a volunteer who helps raise money for people who have died abroad, appealed for help in tracking down eyewitnesses or anybody with footage.
She wrote: “Hello everyone, I need your help! A girl of 19 years drowned in Turkey in the Sealanya Sea Park water amusement park at 11:30 a.m. 08/22/2019.”
She continued: “I really need the help of everyone who was there at that time and took photos and videos in the park, or saw what happened in the pool with beautiful exotic fish (next to the shark pavilion).
“When checking records from CCTV cameras, it turned out that all the information for that day (08/22/2019) was deleted until 20:00.
“Help find eyewitnesses and ANY photos and videos from Turkey’s Sealanya Seapark water park from 11:00 to 11:50 08/22/2019 preferably made towards the pool with exotic fish.
“The girl is tall, slender, was in a light turquoise swimsuit.
“She had long hair that was light brown in colour and had a mask with a snorkel.”
It is the third tragic incident in Turkey involving Russian holidaymakers after a 12-year-old girl from St Petersburg died when she was trapped in a suction pipe in a pool at the Sunhill Hotel in Bodrum, and then a 16-year-old girl from Krasnoyarsk was also revealed to have died this week after suffering acute appendicitis and being refused an air ambulance because she did not have insurance.
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Story By: Michael Leidig, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
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