A 25-year-old woman died in a West London Virgin Active swimming pool under a set of bizarre circumstances. Elsa Carneau was pulled unconscious from the pool following a strange conversation with city banker Rupert Hill moments before her death. Two bottles of alcohol were later found in the locker she had used and as she lay dying, an unnamed worker at the sports centre filmed her final moments on his phone.
Elsa was swimming underwater breaststroke in the pool, stopping at each end, according to Rupert Hill – a banker who was also using the pool that day. According to The Times, he told the inquest jury at the Royal Courts of Justice that she asked if his children, whose mother is French, went to the French Lycée school, an expensive private school for the well-to-do French of South Kensington. She said to him: ‘If you go to the French Lycée and get extremely good grades it will fuck you up. I hate the French.’
According to Mr Hill’s versions of what happened on 3rd December 2011, Elsa then explained to him that ‘I only started learning to swim two weeks ago but I can only swim breast stroke and I swim underwater. I find it very peaceful there.’
Mr Hill said that her manner was ‘extremely euphoric’ and ‘everything she said was in a jokey manner.' ‘With hindsight I wonder if swimming lengths underwater had something to do with it,' he added.
He also said she was complaining of a nosebleed, although he didn't see any evidence of one. He later noticed her curled up under the water in a foetal position, and eventually pulled her out of the water. He told the jury that he was initially reluctant to help her because she was a lone female and he a lone male. Pierre Carneau, Elsa's father, thanked Mr Hill at the inquest for his efforts to revive Elsa. Other witnesses in the pool confirmed that they saw Elsa acting strangely that day.
And if the story wasn't already bizzare enough, according to another article in The Times, as Elsa lay dying at the side of the pool, a worker at the gym took his phone out to film her. Ben Young, a firefighter who was alerted to the incident in the pool when the fitness centre’s alarm was sounded, approached the worker, who said: ‘If she makes it, she has something to remember this by.’ Mr Young said he was astounded by this behaviour and then deleted the video.
Staff later identified Elsa – who wasn’t a member of the club – by breaking into her locker and finding her handbag. They also found ‘two empty alcohol bottles’ in the locker she had used.
Elsa was rushed to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital but could not be revived and soon died. Her father told the inquest that, contrary to her assertion that she had only just learned how to swim, Elsa had started swimming aged five.
The inquest continues.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.