Father and son died in Co Donegal after ‘small incident escalated into a terrible tragedy’

A teenager’s attempt to retrieve a bucket which drifted away during a fishing trip with his father on a Co Donegal lake sparked a chain of events that led to both of their deaths, an inquest has heard.

Jonathon Christian (53) and Jacob Christian (17) died at Lough Keel near Kilmacrennan on June 18th, 2020. The father and son, from the Isle of Man, had been enjoying a day out along with another of Mr Christian’s children, Benjamin (15), while visiting a property they owned in nearby Ballyheerin.

Details about the lead up to the tragedy were heard at a previous hearing, but the inquest was adjourned after Mr Christian’s wife Eileen expressed concerns about his mental health and capacity to look after his sons.

Benjamin Christian has previously told the coroner that their bait box fell into the water and Jacob tried to swim after it, but a ripple pushed the bucket further out. Mr Christian had initially called to Jacob to come back.

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“Jacob tried, but he couldn’t swim back in,” Benjamin added.

After initially trying to throw a life ring to Jacob, he and his father entered the water to try to help him.

“I started to go down and Dad helped me back on to the rocks. I looked back out and both were gone,” he said.

Ms Christian told the inquest Jacob was a strong swimmer, but her husband was not.

Declan Foley, who looks after the pump house at Lough Keel, told the inquest he saw Benjamin sitting on the rocks with his head down. He said the boy was crying, asked for help and told him ‘I couldn’t save them. They went under’.

The Coast Guard was notified and arrived at 3.16pm. Mr Christian’s body was located at 3.59pm and brought ashore, while Jacob was found at 6.38pm. Postmortems by pathologist Dr Gerry O’Dowd found both deaths were due to drowning.

Harrowing footage

Reopening the inquest, Donegal coroner Dr Denis McCauley said Mr Christian had been filming the trip on his phone and unknowingly captured some of the final moments before placing his phone on rocks. It recorded some harrowing footage which provided the inquest with vital evidence and showed the father and son died accidentally, he said.

The inquest heard that Mr Christian’s family had been concerned about his mental state. He had been admitted to hospital involuntarily under the Mental Health Act on May 8th, 2020 and remained under inpatient care until June 2nd. After being released, he was prescribed olanzapine, but none of the medication showed up in toxicology tests after his death.

Ms Christian was concerned that there may have been restrictions imposed regarding travel and interacting with his children. However, the inquest heard that no formal restrictions were in place.

‘Engaged appropriately’

While Mr Christian assured a consultant, who followed up with a call after he came to Ireland, that he was taking his medication, Dr McCauley said it appeared that was not the case. He said the statutory agencies “engaged appropriately” before Mr Christian left the Isle of Man

Garda Ciaran Langan told the inquest he carried out a welfare check on June 10th at the family’s Donegal property and found no issues.

Dr McCauley said the mental state of Jonathon Christian on the day of the tragedy was unknown but would only be of importance if a decision made that day was “out of character”.

“The decision to go fishing on the lake with his two sons was normal,” he said. “A father and two sons went to go fishing and a small incident escalated into a terrible tragedy.”