Three-year-old British boy who nearly drowned in Ibiza hotel was rescued by British guests

A British boy who nearly drowned at an Ibiza resort on Sunday was rescued by other guests from the UK, MailOnline has claimed.

A witness to the incident said the boy – named Joshua – came down steps into the water, but was out of its depth and started to struggle – and was only saved when another guest British spotted him.

Initial reports say Joshua was pulled from the water by a lifeguard before being rushed to a nearby hospital on the Spanish island.

However, Giles Makinson told MailOnline on Tuesday that it was his fiancee Abigail who saved the drowning toddler and that the lifeguard had unknowingly scrolled his phone as the events unfolded.

If it hadn’t been for Abigail’s quick thinking, he said, the incident could have been fatal.

Describing the scene, Mr Makinson said the Invisa Ereso hotel in the seaside village of Es Canar had two swimming pools on different levels, separated by a few steps.

Shortly before the boy fell in the water, the lower of the two pools – the one typically used for resort entertainment, such as dancing and shows – had hosted a foam party which the boy attended.

Mr Makinson said he believed Joshua had taken off his life jacket after the foam party ended and returned to the upper pool.

That’s when the boy entered the pool, the witness said, and he “immediately began to take on water as he was out of its depth”. Mr Makinson said video of the incident later showed he was “sinking lower and lower”, he added.

Although the lifeguard sat less than five meters away, it was Abigail, 29, who spotted the boy, Mr Makinson said. Having worked on cruise ships before, Abigail quickly sprang into action and lifted the boy.

At this point, she yelled at the lifeguard and her mother, while Mr Makinson helped her lift Joshua out of the water and to the side of the pool.

The lifeguard only acted when Abigail’s mother – who had filmed her daughter and Mr Makinson playing in the water – alerted her that the young boy had nearly drowned.

Luckily, there was a doctor sitting around the pool also on his vacation, who rushed to help him. Mr Makinson said she started performing CPR and was able to bring the boy – who was then taken to a hotel.

From there, the boy was taken to Nuestra Senora del Rosario, a private medical clinic on the Spanish island.

The entire incident was filmed, Mr Makinson said, and how events unfolded only became clear once he viewed the footage.

“We were playing in the pool, when Abigail noticed a boy behind us,” Mr Makinson said. “As we are family, Abigail’s mum was filming us in the water and captured the young boy coming in without his life jacket and then sinking.”

Mr Makinson said the lifeguard, believed to be in her 40s, only acted when Abigail’s mother shouted at him: ‘There was a baby in the water!’

“The lifeguard, who was sitting no more than 5m from the incident, was too busy playing on his phone to notice a very small boy, alone, entering a 2m deep swimming pool,” a- he told MailOnline.

“It shouldn’t be up to holidaymakers to save people who are drowning in the pool. Joshua should have been scouted [by the lifeguard],’ he added.

Mr Makinson said he looked at the footage after the incident to find the boy had been in the water for three minutes. For at least a minute, he said, the boy was underwater.

The witness suggested that the boy’s parents temporarily lost sight of him.

“If it hadn’t been for Abigail pulling him from the bottom of the pool, carrying him and getting the doctor’s attention to help him, this incident would have resulted in a fatality,” Mr Makinson said.

According to reports, police arrived at the scene near the town of Santa Eulalia around 5:30 p.m. Sunday, where they found paramedics already there to help the child.

Reports on Monday said the boy was in stable condition. Mr Makinson said another family at the resort who knew Joshua’s family told him the same.

The clinic Joshua was taken to is the same one a 21-year-old Briton was taken to after a dip on the second-floor balcony of the popular Playa d’en Bossa resort in the early hours of Thursday morning.

He was admitted to intensive care with multiple injuries, including head injuries.

The location where this accident occurred has been identified as the adults-only Jet Apartments.

Carl Shepherd, 28, known to friends and family as Daniel, died at the same apartment complex in August 2017 after falling three stories at 5.30am.

It was later reported that he had fallen asleep on a ledge between the terrace of the apartment he was in and a neighboring apartment.

In May, a British toddler drowned in a swimming pool accident on the Costa Blanca.

Freddie Joseph Briggs died in the swimming pool of his parents’ home in the village of Aigues near Benidorm on May 25, leading the local council to declare three days of mourning.

Tributes were paid to the 19-month-old boy at his funeral at a Belfast church where he was baptized before being buried in a nearby cemetery.

Early last month, a six-year-old British boy died days in hospital after being rescued from a hotel swimming pool near the Love Island villa in Mallorca.

The youngster was rushed to hospital in “critical” condition from a four-star hotel in the resort town of Sa Coma.