It was a beautiful summer day, the children were eating ice cream and wanted to go pedal boating in Gössendorf near Graz. The father admitted, knowing full well that he could only swim poorly and that his wife and the girls couldn’t swim at all. Then the tragedy: the boat leaked and sank. The six-year-old drowned, her sister barely survived. Lender, father and mother were convicted of gross negligence (not final).
“My sympathy is with you, but you must go through with it,” Judge Helmut Wlasak begins the trial in Graz on Wednesday. The 31-year-old suspect and the mother of the drowned girl are crying softly. “It is a dramatic story,” said public prosecutor Anton Scherr. “The pedal boat had damage to the hull and was structurally defective.”
He accuses the lender of not checking his boats. “It dropped quickly. The parents were able to get by on the land, but unfortunately the children couldn’t.” The six-year-old drowned, her eight-year-old sister was rescued by a witness, but her life was in danger for a long time.
“I trusted the boat to work”
“Although the children could not swim, the parents did not ask for a swimming aid, they acted with gross negligence,” the prosecutor said. “I trusted the boat to work,” the father explains. “We felt safe. Since we rented it, I thought there was a permit for that too.” But it was full of water.
The parents desperately tried to draw the attention of passersby to their dramatic situation. “We screamed, but it was only seconds,” the Afghan sobbed.
“Three boats for a total of 2100 US dollars – made in China”
The boat rental company explains that he was not there on the day of the accident. “I don’t know if the pedal boats were fit to ride.” But he assumed the boats would be suitable as they are. “They are also not subject to any Ö standard,” interrupts defender Michael Reichenvater. “From this whole context, I will be careful never to rent water sports equipment again.”
“They all made it a bit easy on themselves there,” Wlasak accuses the suspect, who was clearly not a professional. Just three months before the accident, he had three pedal boats delivered: “Total USD 2,100 made in China”, Wlasak shakes his head. “It was all absolutely shoo-botch.”
guilty pleas
The (non-final) verdicts: seven months suspended imprisonment and a fine of 6,000 euros for the boat rental company, each six months suspended imprisonment for the parents. “They shouldn’t have interfered,” the judge said. The lender has to pay the parents an extra 1,000 euros in mourning money and bear the funeral costs.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
