YourThaiPlanet.com

A British teenager has drowned after losing his goggles in a Thai resort swimming pool and being sucked into the pool's pump system. Nathan Clark, 14, was finally spat out in the pool's pump room at Pattaya Water Park, east of Bangkok.

The teenager was last seen after telling his brother Rhys, 15, that he had lost his goggles, before diving down to lift up the grate at the bottom of the pool.

Nathan's grieving family have now told of how they pleaded with resort for 30 minutes before staff took their distress calls seriously. The teenager's father, Jim Clark, then dived down into the pump system in a desperate bid to save his son, but it was too late. "The guards did nothing not for 30 minutes, they would not believe what had happened," Mr Clark told the Daily Mail."When I finally forced them to do something they went to the pump room, opened a hatch and my son's body came out."

A distraught Mr Clark turned on a Thai cameraman filming the body and hit at him with a spanner. In a cruel twist, Thai police then ordered the father to pay 12,000 baht ($500) in compensation. "I was distraught with what had happened when I saw the intrusive cameramen I lashed out," Mr Clark said.

Writing on an internet blog, Rhys Clark recalled how he gone to get help before returning to the pool to learn his brother’s tragic fate. "I was coming down the stairs to the main pool when I heard my father shout "No!" very loudly then my stepmother screaming," he wrote. "If anyone is to blame it should be me … I should have stopped my younger brother."

This is a very tragic and unfortunate accident witch very well could have had a different ending if the “lifeguards” (if you can call them that) would have done their job.

I believe that anyone in the field of protecting people. Be it police, fire fighter, lifeguard or what ever the job may be. They should take ALL alarms as REAL!!! Then if it is found to be a “joke”, then take the appropriate actions to see that the “jokers” are punished according to the law.

I have been to this water park and as I recall. I don’t remember seeing more than 2 or 3 “lifeguards” though the whole park. I personally had to save a little girl who had fell in the lazy river section of the park and there was no “lifeguards” to be found in view of where the girl fell in.

As far as the father goes, I would have done the same damn thing and probably more if some asshole that was taking pictures of my dead son. I probably would have tried to kill the sorry ass motherf*cker of a lifeguard too. So I respect the father for being as composed as he was.

It is unfortunate that this young boy died. It is also unfortunate that the lifeguards on duty did nothing for 30 mins. I just hope that the water park and its staff will take any situation that seems to be life threatening seriously in the future and that all restricted areas are locked.