Two people have died after they were reportedly electrocuted in a luxury swimming pool in India.
Managers at the five-star Conrad Bengaluru Hotel said they were ‘deeply saddened’ by the incident involving a German flight crew member and Slovak business manager.
Local media said the ‘tragedy’, which occurred in Bengaluru’s Halasuru area on Saturday, was suspected to have been caused by an electric current in the pool.
Police identified the German victim as Alexander Maximilian Theiss, 57, and the Slovak businessman as Juraj Horvat, 45, who worked as a project manager for IBM.
Rahul Tiwari, a 28-year-old pool attendant and lifeguard who had tried to rescue the victims, and an American guest, Mathew Desantis, 41, who ‘managed to swim to safety’, were treated in hospital where they are said to remain in a stable condition.
Mr Theiss’s wife has reportedly filed a police complaint alleging both victims were electrocuted while trying to get out of the pool and drowned, according to NDTV.
She claimed the deaths were caused by the negligence of the hotel’s management in maintaining the pool.
The couple had arrived in India on October 20 to spend their holidays and had checked into the hotel on Friday, according to the New Indian Express.
Managers at the five-star Conrad Bengaluru Hotel (pictured/file image) said they were ‘deeply saddened’ by the incident involving a German flight crew member and Slovak business manager
Mr Horvat’s wife, Silvia Horvatova, reportedly heard screams from near the pool shortly after 5.15pm, where she rushed to find her husband lying motionless in the water.
The hotel said the cause of the incident ‘has not yet been established’ – insisting they will co-operate with police.
The victims were rushed to Manipal Hospital Old Airport Road, with one pronounced dead on arrival and the other in a state of cardiac arrest and unable to be revived.
Local media said the suspected cause of the deaths was electrocution, with investigators trying to determine how an electric current had reached the water.
The Lufthansa airline confirmed one of their crew members died in an accident during a layover in Bengaluru.
A spokesman told Fox News: ‘Our deepest sympathies go out to the family, relatives and friends of the deceased crew member.’
Conrad, a luxury 24-storey hotel which is part of the Hilton group, has said its pool will be ‘closed for maintenance’ from October 31 to November 30.
Investigators are examining the pool’s underwater light as part of their probe and will consider whether safety devices, including earth-leakage circuit breakers, were operational at the time, The Times of India reports.
