A LIFEGUARD and fitness instructor drowned just 10 feet from the edge of a South Cumbria reservoir after agreeing to a £20 bet, an inquest heard.

Dad-of-one Wesley Wood, of High Ridge, Kendal, was with friends Darren Speirs and Trevor O’Neill on a hot afternoon in June last year. As the three men walked towards Ormsgill Reservoir, Barrow, Mr Speirs said Mr Wood said to him: “I bet you £20 I can swim across faster than you.”

Mr Speirs rang his friend Diane Parkinson to ask her to come to look after their clothes, the hearing was told. Despite her trying to persuade them against the ‘dangerous’ and ‘stupid’ idea, Mr Wood and Mr Speirs stripped down to their boxers and waded into the reservoir.

Mr Speirs managed to swim around 30 feet into the reservoir before he became aware that 36-year-old Mr Wood was no longer beside him.

During the first day of an inquest into Mr Wood’s death at Barrow Town Hall, Mr Speirs recalled his desperate attempts to save his friend.

“I went down five or six times and on the last time I found him,” he said. “I put my hands under his arms and managed to get him up a bit but it was too hard. It was just a stupid £20 bet.”

Mr Speirs said the three men had drunk ‘a couple of cans’ but no-one was drunk. Miss Parkinson said she repeatedly told both men not to go in the reservoir. “Wes went under once then he popped back up and then he went under again,” she said. “He just disappeared; his head just went under.

“I rang 999, the lady told me to tell Trevor and Darren to get out of the water but they wouldn’t get out. They kept trying for ages to get him out.”

Mr Wood’s mum Julie Beswick described her son as a ‘gentle soul, kind and caring, who could be mischievous and always stuck up for the underdog’. She told area coroner Kirsty Gomersal that her son had worked as a joiner for Leck Construction, a lifeguard at White Cross Bay and as a fitness instructor.

Mrs Beswick had repeatedly told the inquest she believed someone had pulled her son’s head under the water. But pathologist Alison Armour said an autopsy revealed no signs of assault. She also said Mr Wood would have seen his swimming ability severely affected by his alcohol consumption.

The hearing was told that Barrow Borough Council, which owns the body of water, had put up signs warning people not to swim in the reservoir since the incident.

The coroner recorded a verdict of misadventure. She said: “I would urge people who have drunk alcohol and find themselves in the same circumstances not to swim. That warning should be Wes’ legacy.”