Fatal Freindship 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
On the 28th on April an English tourist Raymond Marshall, 43 and his Australian cyber friend Arthur Skellern, 33 both met an untimely demise on the Gold Coast.
As it turns out Mr Marshall and his wife choose to cement their cyber frienship by meeting Mr Skellern and his wife on the Gold Coast. A move he would never live to regret.
The Marshall's had been in Australia when they went for a swim on a notoriously dangerous Gold Coast beach. After swimming for a little while the Marshall's and Mr Skellern were dragged out to sea by a rip at Mermaid beach. Mrs Marshall managed to make it back to shore and call for help, but both men were dragged from the pulled unconscious from the water and despite the best efforts from paramedics were pronounced dead upon their arrival at hospital.
It is clear all parties showed distinct lack of judgement as for a Gold Coast local Mr Skellern should of been fully aware of the dangers of swimming in unpatrolled beach areas. When walking to the beach they walked past signs warning them to swim in patrolled areas and they decided to swim 200m north of a patrolled area where yellow danger flags warning of rips was clearly visible from where they went swimming. Clearly giving Mr Skellern and Mr Marshall a great chance to earn a Darwin Award which they took.
Surf Lifesaving Queensland spokesman George Hill said after the event "If we can't see you we can't save you. Locals should know better" and "the deaths could have been prevented if the people had walked 300 metres to the flagged area." Submitted on 05/04/2002
Submitted by:
Peter
Reference:
The Sunday Mail 5-5-02
Copyright © 2002 DarwinAwards.com
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