{"id":335041,"date":"2025-12-25T14:31:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T14:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/335041\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T14:31:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T14:31:18","slug":"four-drown-in-tenerife-tragedy-as-british-family-warn-other-holidaymakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/335041\/","title":{"rendered":"Four drown in Tenerife tragedy as British family warn other holidaymakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kai Barrington, 42, and 39-year-old Sarah Jellard shared their experience of watching as massive waves smashed into Tenerife and pulled several people out to sea<\/p>\n

09:25, 25 Dec 2025Updated 11:53, 25 Dec 2025<\/p>\n

\"AKai Barrington and Sarah Jellard were at the site of the incident(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

A family has issued a warning to visitors to the Canary Islands<\/a> and shared dangers about the natural pools after narrowly escaping drowning.<\/p>\n

Four people were killed and one person remains missing after huge waves struck a man-made natural pool in Los Gigantes, located on Tenerife’s west coast<\/a>, on December 7. Kai Barrington, 42, and Sarah Jellard, 39, both from Devon, were on holiday on the island along with their 20-month-old baby.<\/p>\n

The family visited the tourist hotspot on the same day of the horrible accident. At about 4pm, Kai entered the water which was filled with other tourists while Sarah and her toddler sat higher up.<\/p>\n

\"KaiKai Barrington and Sarah Jellard witnessed the huge waves on the Spanish island (Image: PA)READ MORE: ‘World’s best winter sun destination’ has 25C weather and \u00a32.25 pints<\/a>READ MORE: Brits can currently get up to \u00a3500 off all-inclusive holidays to the Canary Islands<\/a><\/p>\n

But just moments later, a huge series of large waves smashed against the shore and engulfed the pool – taking a dozen swimmers with it. Experienced surfer Kai, stayed under the wave and clung onto the bottom of the pool, which he claimed saved his life.<\/p>\n

“Because I was in a sea pool as the waves were crashing over and I being tumbled around a bit, I didn\u2019t really think anything of it,” the 42-year-old explained, the Manchester Evening News <\/a>said. “It\u2019s a scenario I\u2019m used to and comfortable with.<\/p>\n

“It was really only when I\u2019d come up, I think maybe the second time after one of the big waves had hit, and I was holding onto the bottom with my fingertips, that I realised I was being pulled over the edge. I saw two people to the left of me get pulled over the side.”<\/p>\n

Sarah noticed Kai was struggling in the water and saw waves surround him as others were pulled away into the ocean. “I started looking out to sea, looking out for Kai and it\u2019s the most helpless situation you can ever be in because there\u2019s nothing you can do,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"AMultiple people were swept away by waves (Image: PA)<\/p>\n

“There\u2019s no ropes around you, there\u2019s nothing, emergency services have been called, there\u2019s nothing you can do but just watch your loved one in the sea. I then watched someone swim, I didn\u2019t know who it was because I couldn\u2019t (see) at such a distance. I watched them drown. I saw them swim and take their last stroke, and then not take another one.”<\/p>\n

A major rescue operation was launched that ended up leading to the discovery of the bodies of a 35-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman as well as another body of a man about no other information was given. A woman, who had been airlifted to hospital, died the following day and a fifth person has not yet been located.<\/p>\n

Kai was taken to hospital before being released. The Canary Islands, located off the north-west of Africa, has many natural pool rocks, some of which are accessible to swimmers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kai Barrington, 42, and 39-year-old Sarah Jellard shared their experience of watching as massive waves smashed into Tenerife…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[31304,59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-335041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-canary-islands","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}