Heartbreaking.
Just hours before 14-year old Emily Gardner tragically died in a speedboat accident, she sent her dad Clive a final text showing two emojis, a wave and a sleeping face – a text he now considers a ‘premonition’ of what was about to happen.
“It was the very last time I heard from Emily,” he told the Mirror. “Now I think it was some sort of premonition. It felt so strange to me. I'm not a superstitious person but after what happened, the text makes sense to me.”
Emily was on a trip with friends when she drowned after getting trapped under a speedboat. Her life jacket had become entangled, fatally trapping her, and while her two friends broke free, lifeboat crews weren’t able to free her for 25 minutes. The inquest found that Emily’s cause of death was her “ill-fitting” buoyancy aid becoming trapped.
Now her parents are campaigning to bring in Emily’s Law, to ensure a tragedy like this doesn’t happened again.
“It beggars belief that there is no legal requirement for all passengers, especially children, to wear a properly fitting life jacket or any life jacket at all, and that drivers of powerful speedboats don't require training and a licence,” said the family’s lawyer Richard Langton
“If we’d known there were no laws covering leisure crafts then we would never have let Emily go,” said Emily’s heartbroken mum Debbie. “We’ve been robbed of watching our little girl grow up, of celebrating her 16th birthday this year and going to her prom.”
You can sign the petition for Emily’s Law here.
