THE FAMILY of an Irishman who died while on holiday in Portugal over weekend hope to bring his body home before the weekend.
Geoff Hingston (37), from Dublin, was swimming while on an organised boat trip to see caves off the Algarve area of Vilamoura.
He was accompanied on the boat trip by his wife, Sinéad, who is five months pregnant; his father; and his mother-in-law. The couple married last Christmas.
They had been holidaying in the area, with his father and her parents, since July 24th, and were due to return to Ireland next Sunday.
A member of the family, speaking from the Algarve yesterday, said the four had been on an organised boat trip when a first group of tourists were taken by dinghy to the caves from the main boat.
“The captain of the boat said people could get in for a swim while we waited to be brought to the caves,” she said.
“So he [Mr Hingston] got in and was swimming with other people while Sinéad was taking photographs of him. She had him in her sight the whole time.”
She said Mr Hingston appeared to be floating on his back when his wife called to ask if he was all right.
“That was the first indication we had that anything was wrong. He was brought into Albufeira beach by dinghy. We were left waiting on the main boat for what felt like two hours.
“When we finally got back to the beach there was an ambulance and the medical people were asking Sinéad if he had banged his head or anything, and she said no. And so they brought her in to sit down and just said they had tried everything to save him.”
She said a postmortem was due to be performed yesterday.
“He had no heart problem. We have no idea how he died. We are hoping to bring him home in the next few days. We have to wait for the autopsy and the paperwork. It is really just all so awful,” she said.
