BBC Scotland Information
BBC5 councillors have pleaded responsible to well being and security costs after a disabled swimmer virtually drowned in a leisure centre pool in East Ayrshire.
Ryan Deans, 25, needed to be resuscitated after being submerged for nearly two minutes earlier than the alarm was raised on the Galleon Centre in Kilmarnock in 2023.
Councillors Iain Linton, Clare Maitland, Barry Douglas, James Adams and provost Claire Leitch have been trustees of an organization which supplied leisure amenities on the centre on the time.
One other trustee who additionally pleaded responsible, Manpreet Bawa, isn’t a councillor.
Kilmarnock Sheriff Court docket heard Mr Deans – who has studying difficulties and suffers from seizures – was a member of the Kilmarnock Jets swimming membership which was collaborating in a session on the Galleon when he acquired into issue.
CCTV footage was proven of Mr Deans coming into the pool by a slide.
He was submerged for a minute and 52 seconds earlier than volunteers from the membership realised he was below the water.
He was discovered face down in the midst of the small pool, with the depth at that time being about 0.8 metres.
Mr Deans was pulled out of the water by the volunteers who confirmed he was nonetheless respiration.
The group then shouted to the lifeguard to boost the alarm. An ambulance was known as and Mr Deans was taken to the Crosshouse College Hospital the place it was discovered he had suffered a seizure underwater.
Psychological affect
Mr Deans’ mom has instructed the prosecutor he had suffered psychologically however it was exhausting to evaluate the affect as he’s non-verbal.
She mentioned he had misplaced curiosity in swimming and had not returned to the membership he had been a member of for 15 years.
The native authority investigation revealed insufficient danger evaluation and “deficiencies in procedures to make sure, while within the Galleon pool, members of the Kilmarnock Jets weren’t uncovered to dangers to their well being and security”.
Companies on the centre had been supplied by the Kilmarnock Leisure Centre Belief which has since been dissolved.
Its trustees included SNP members Leitch, Linton and Maitland, plus Conservative councillor Adams and Labour consultant Douglas.
The courtroom heard the trustees needed to placed on report their honest remorse to Mr Deans.
In a separate incident on the centre in 2019, trustees have been fined £10,000 after a six-year-old lady almost drowned in the identical pool.
