Hero swimmer who rescued child from Sussex beach named as Plamen Petkova

2:43pm Tuesday 29th May 2012 in News By Anna Roberts, Crime reporter

The man who died whilst saving a five-year old girl from the water at West Wittering beach on Saturday has been named.

He was 32-year old Plamen Petkova, of Westmoreland Drive, Sutton, Surrey.

A postmortem held today at St Richards Hospital, Chichester, found the cause of death to be drowning, and an inquest has been formally opened and adjourned.

On Saturday at 12.10pm the ambulance service informed Sussex Police of a report of an incident on West Wittering beach.

Mr Petkova, a Bulgarian national, and a Guildford woman entered the water after the five-year old girl, not known to them, was being carried away from the beach by the tide.

He was able to reach the child and pass her on to the woman who was able to bring the child safely back to her family on the shore.

Tragically Mr Petkova was unable to reach the shore himself and was recovered unconscious from the water by others at the scene.

Despite efforts by members of the public and emergency services to resuscitate he was pronounced dead at the scene.

The girl was on the beach with her family who are from North West London. The Guildford woman was with a family group separate from those of the deceased and the child.

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A Sussex Police spokesman said; "It is clear that this was a tragic accident and there is no further police investigation.

"There will be a Coroner's inquest at a later date yet to be set."

Pay tribute to Mr Petkova below.

Comments(10)

Lydia Reid says...
3:30pm Tue 29 May 12

I don't care the nationality this man is a hero
More so because it is obvious he was not particularly skilled at swimming

God bless and keep you

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Alan G Skinner says...
4:05pm Tue 29 May 12

Obviously a very decent individual, God rest his soul. While this is perhaps not the appropriate forum to raise this question, but where on earth were the parents of this child? An innocent man has lost his life due to their apparent ignorance, ineptitude and incompetence.

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diriky says...
4:37pm Tue 29 May 12

Alan, no parent is perfect mistakes happen and unfortunately a "Man has DIED" saving the child ; You cannot Blame anyone for a tragic ACCIDENT!

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Alan G Skinner says...
5:46pm Tue 29 May 12

But this was entirely avoidable, why the child not being supervised, why was it not the parents who attempted to save the child? Turn this around, lets say it was the child who was tragically lost and then tell me the Police and Social services would'nt investigate.

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Maxwell's Ghost says...
7:38pm Tue 29 May 12

Sadly Alan, people who don't live near the sea don't always understand its power or currents and if they see people in the water on a hot day assume its safe.
Thankfully, the man who lost his life saving these children was more of a man than you ever will be with your lack of humanity.

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Alan G Skinner says...
8:57pm Tue 29 May 12

With respect, i'm not questioning the bravery of Mr Petkova or the nobility of his sacrifice, i would have done exactly the same thing, especially if it had been my child in difficulty. I am merely questioning why it was necessary, why did Mr Petkova have to risk his life, why was the child put in that position by there parents, why were the Parents not the first ones in the water ???????

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Maxwell's Ghost says...
11:53pm Tue 29 May 12

Maybe the parents were paralysed by fear or shock, maybe they couldn't swim, maybe they turned their back for two seconds.
All I can say is thankfully a woman and a foreign national stepped up and were willing to risk their lives in a selfless act to save the children and the children didn't have to rely on a judgemental old fusspot like you.
If you ever meet real heroes from some terrible disasters as I have had the honour to have done in 30 years as a journalist, none of them have ever criticised or questioned why someone has needed 'rescuing'. There is no need to blame in such a tragedy, we choose to put others before ourselves.

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Alan G Skinner says...
12:12pm Wed 30 May 12

Once again, with respect and without juvenile put downs, after five overseas tours, I now well about putting your own safty at risk, to protect others, when it is absolutely necessary, I have seen real acts of valour and bravery of which I pray you never have to witness. My only point is this man lost his life needlessly and the child should have never been in the position they were. I cannot understand why you find this assessment so difficult to accept.

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Maxwell's Ghost says...
1:05pm Wed 30 May 12

But with your world wide experience Alan you should have more understanding than you are showing.
But perhaps you had a commanding officer telling you to be brave because you certainly show cowardice on here pointing the finger at the parents for a man losing his life.
Remember a man has lost his life and I am sure the parents and people there on the day don't want judgemental old fusspots like you pointing the finger.
The job of gently explaining what has happened is that of a coroner not busybodies like you.

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Alan G Skinner says...
1:58pm Wed 30 May 12

Perhaps if there were more people willing to stand up and tell things how they are, without worrying about "offending" and "upsetting", this country would not be the social and ecomomic disaster it is today. It's not always the council's fault, or the governments fault or an "accident", as some people like to assume for the sake of harmony. Sometimes the finger does need to be pointed, sometimes the blame does lie squarley at the foot of an individual. The apathy we have in this country is destroying everything that made this once great country the envy of the world, just look at it, hardly anything left worth saving.

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