Officials Detail How 4 Teens Drowned on Camping Trip, as Parents Share Heartbreak: 'Worst Nightmare'

Officials Detail How 4 Teens Drowned on Camping Trip, as Parents Share Heartbreak: 'Worst Nightmare' https://ift.tt/tgiTN1W

Jevon Hirst, Harvey Owen, Wilf Fitchett and Hugo Morris drowned after their car went off the road and into a water-filled ditch in November 2023

Press Association via AP Images

A photo of the four teenagers, Jevon Hirst, Harvey Owen, Wilf Fitchett, and Hugo Morris, who died in a car crash in Snowdonia, North Wales, by candles and a sympathy card inside Shrewsbury Abbey.

As police revealed details about the drowning deaths of four teenage boys who died during a camping trip in November 2023, heartbreaking tributes from their grieving parents were also shared.

Jevon Hirst, 16, Harvey Owen, 17, Wilf Fitchett, 17, and 18-year-old Hugo Morris died after their car went into a ditch in the remote Snowdonia region of the U.K. while they were traveling for a camping trip.

At a court hearing on Wednesday, Oct. 16, a police investigator and the senior coroner for North West Wales said that the teens drowned after Morris — who had passed his driving test just six months before the trip — is believed to have lost control of his car while driving too fast in a poorly marked bend in the road, according to the BBC  and U.K. newspaper The Times.

“The vehicle has come into the bend a little bit too quickly and has understeered,” said Ian Thompson, a forensic collision investigator for the North Wales police, according to The Times. “Mr. Morris negotiated the right-hand bend, entered onto the grass verge, went down a steep embankment and then into a water-filled drainage ditch.”

“I find that all four young men would have died very soon following the collision," said senior coroner Kate Robertson.

North Wales Police (4)

Harvey Owen; Jevon Hirst; Hugo Morris; Wilf Fitchett.

Related: Boy, 12, and Grandfather Found Dead Inside Tent During Camping Trip: 'Tragic Circumstances'

Thompson added that due to heavy rain, the river had risen by over three feet in the days before the crash, and that it was raining heavily on the day the crash occurred. Although Thompson did not believe weather conditions were to blame for the collision, he said that what happened was "avoidable," according to the BBC.

Morris’ driving was a “significant” factor in the accident, Thompson said, noting that at the time of the crash, both rear tires of the car had half the required pressure for carrying four people, per the Times. A snapchat video posted by Fitchett before the crash suggested that all four of the boys were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash.

Although the speed limit for the road was 60mph, Thompson said that when it came to the bend, drivers would need to go a lot slower to stay safe. "Having driven the bend myself the fastest speed I felt comfortable negotiating the bend was 26mph," he said, per The Guardian.

Robertson said that road signs in the area would not have been enough to warn the boys of the upcoming bend, although more signs and chevrons have since been put in place, per Wales Online.

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At the inquest, Heather Sanderson — the mom of Wilf Fitchett — said that the family is grieving not just for themselves, but for all their fellow parents, "particularly for the parents of the driver."

“We gave Wilf permission to go because we believed that the driver had passed his driving test — which he had," Sanderson said, according to the Times. “We had done our research and we would make the same decision again."

"As an older mum, I was fortunate to have Wilf at the age of 42, I will forever feel blessed to have loved him and been loved by him for 17 years," she added, according to the BBC. "I will miss him for the rest of my life."

PA Video/PA Images via Getty Images

Screen grab taken from video of the scene in Gwynedd, North Wales.

In a tribute read by the coroner, Hirst’s mother, Melanie, said that her son "loved the outdoors and going walking."

“Jevon liked to socialize with his friends. He was a very loving son," she wrote, reported the Times.

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In another tribute, Owen’s mother, Crystal, said that her son was “perfect from the minute he came into the world and continued to be until he was tragically taken from us,” according to the BBC.

“Every parent’s worst nightmare came true,” she said, adding that their family had “a lifetime of grieving the life he should be living.”

Related: 4 Teenage Boys Found Dead in Car Following ‘Nightmare’ Camping Trip Accident

 Jacob King/PA Images via Getty

Written tributes at Shrewsbury Abbey for the four teenagers.

Meanwhile, Morris’ parents, Dominic and Sarah, remembered their son as having a “thirst for life.”

“No words can express our loss,” they shared. “He was happy and looking forward to the weekend. The world is shattered, bent and crooked now. We know what he went on to do would have been wonderful.”

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