Kyra Hill got into difficulty in a designated swimming area at Liquid Leisure near Windsor, Berkshire, in August 2022.
The diver who found an 11-year-old girl who drowned at a waterpark said the lake “had almost zero visibility”, an inquest has heard.
Kyra Hill got into difficulty in a designated swimming area at Liquid Leisure near Windsor, Berkshire, in August 2022.
A 17-year-old lifeguard dived in after her at 3.20pm before leaving the water to radio her colleagues.
At 3.44pm, around 13 minutes before emergency services were called, the park owner called an off-duty firefighter who lived nearby and was a divemaster, Berkshire Coroner’s Court heard on Thursday.
Chris Knight, who previously worked at the park, picked up at around 4.19pm and CCTV showed Mr Knight first entering the water with an oxygen tank at 4.33pm.
He found Kyra at around 5.10pm.
The diver said he searched two parts of the lake before he was told that CCTV showed her going under at another location.
He said that as far as he was aware no-one had looked at the CCTV by the time he arrived at the park.
Mr Knight emerged from the water with Kyra about 12 minutes after he started looking in the third area.
Describing the final search, the firefighter said: “Because everything else had seemed slow, that seemed fast”.
Mr Knight said no divers worked at the park and and he helped staff there “very occasionally”.
Asked if he was the most convenient diver for Liquid Leisure to call in response to emergency, he said: “I would say I was the only option.”
Finding Kyra would be like looking for a “needle in a haystack” for a surface swimmer diving down, Mr Knight said.
He said: “It’s not impossible but they would have been very lucky to have gone to the right spot, to have gone down to that depth with almost zero visibility.”
“I could probably see a metre at most and that’s like seeing a shadow in a metre, rather than seeing in detail,” he added.
Mr Knight had known Liquid Leisure owner and director Stuart Marston for around three decades.
He said he started wakeboarding at Liquid Leisure shortly after it opened and later worked there.
After moving career Mr Knight continued to work there part-time.
He said he had never had any concerns about safety at the park.
At the start of Thursday’s hearing, senior coroner Heidi Connor warned that she is “not hesitant to up the police presence” for the inquest.
She said people have a right to give evidence “without fears for their safety” and did not specify what this referred to.
Mrs Connor also reminded those giving evidence to “tell the truth”.
Two Thames Valley officers arrived during the close of the morning sitting.
The coroner pointed them out and added: “The reason why we stand and bow at inquests – it is not for me, it is not for the court, it is out of respect for Kyra and I must insist that these proceedings remain respectful to Kyra.”
