Cameroon: Man dies in swimming pool on Baptism Day
By Shout-Africa Cameroon correspondent – Lambert, 27, who received baptism on Christmas Day in a swimming pool in Bonapriso, later died in the pool same day.
Though Christmas Day is traditionally the time for baptismal programmes in most churches in Christendom, as long as temperatures continue to rise in the economic capital, the warm and humid Douala city gives enough reason for the very many residents taking up cool leisures as much as resources permit. Top on the list of outdoor Christmas fun is, of course, swimming. Sadly, accidents come along with swimming, and the Bonadouma Home swimming pool in Bonapriso has, notoriously, provided an unexplained five such accidents, successively over the years, according to inhabitants. The most recent happened on Christmas Day.
As church neighbours reported, rescue inhabitants were called to the Bonadouma Home when a man was found in the compound’s swimming pool, also used extensively for baptism in the city. Inhabitants of the residence arrived at about 12:30 GMT Sunday, December 25, 2011, and found Lambert lying at the borders of the pool, having been pulled out from the pool’s bottom by the deceased’s friends.
He showed no bodily signs of foul play, prompting immediate rush to the New Bell District Hospital. The seven friends did not confirm medical examinations which proved him dead, then rushed the corpse for further medical confirmation at the Military Hospital in Bonanjo. It is here that the 27-year-old Lambert was referred for the mortuary. It is not yet clear what killed him.
Two hours after his baptism in the same swimming pool, Lambert had returned with his friends for a cool leisure at the pool. It is said here that his Pastor, names withheld, had warned the new converts and spectators not to return to the pool after the baptism.
Twenty-seven-year-old Lambert, whose family abode is situated a few walk from the Church at the Air Force Base, had received baptism at about 8:30 GMT. The young Christian and friends went back to the baptismal pool for a swim two hours later. Friends reported playing with him until shortly before the leisure was over. In the break that ensued without him, they, at first glance, thought he left earlier and may be without informing them. It was during the second plunge that one of his friends partaking in the leisure pulled him up from the bottom of the pool.
This tragic Bonadouma Home swimming pool incident reminds us that drowning accidents can strike anyone, as past incidents focused on children; adults drown in the pool all too often. And as this episode demonstrates, not even Christians are spared from pool accidents.
