Boy, 10, dies on adventure trip

A boy of 10 who died after he was swept away while bathing in a river during a school trip to the Lake District was today named by police.

Max Palmer - who was not a pupil on the trip, but was accompanying his mother - was swimming with a group of older children in a small river near Glenridding in the Lake District when he was swept 100 yards downstream.

His mother Tricia, 37, a school assistant, leapt in to save him but she too, was swept away and knocked unconscious.

Rescuers from the Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team, on exercise nearby, pulled mother and son from the river 100 yards downstream. Max was pronounced dead at the scene but Mrs Palmer was resuscitated on the riverbank.

Mrs Palmer, who works at Fleetwood High School in Lancashire, which organised the trip, was airlifted to hospital and treated for hypothermia before being released. Another child was taken by helicopter to hospital suffering from cold and a grazed ankle. The child, was also released last night.

A spokesman for the rescue team said they used a rope pulley system to bring Mrs Palmer and the injured child down from the river. Locals said the river, which flows into Ullswater, was swollen by recent rain.

Max, a Manchester United fan, lived with his mother and father, Mark, in Fleetwood.

Insp Paul Kissack of Cumbria police said the boy, who was not a pupil at Fleetwood High School, was accompanying his mother on the trip.

An investigation is under way today into the tragedy. Max's death comes 18 months after Hannah Beck, 13, and Rochelle Cauvet, 14, from Leeds, drowned during a school trip in North Yorkshire.

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