Incident Report: Carl Bennion

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Carl Bennion attended the world's first artificial surf lagoon at Surf Snowdonia on 5 August 2018 when he fell from his surfboard and collided with a raised reef area which was only 0.9 metres deep, sustaining severe injury consisting of Frankel/ASIA C5 B tetraplegia. 

The lagoon was around 300 metres by 120 metres wide. Waves were generated by a mechanical foil that was wedge-shaped and accelerated along a rail to create artificial waves in the inland lagoon. The lagoon bottom was a 'W' shape on either side of the foil. Adjacent to the foil were deep water areas around 2.8 metres deep, followed by a shallow reef around 3 metres wide and 0.9 metres deep, before descending again to around 2.8 metres and slowly sloping upwards to ground level. 

Mr Bennion was found to have fallen to the side of his surfboard before his head struck the reef. Safety expert evidence from Mr Petherick and Mr Jacklin concluded that there were no industry standards or guidance written specifically for inland surf lagoons. This was particularly material to HHJ Bird's finding that the Claimant failed to prove the Defendant was negligent in permitting surfers to fall from a height (on the wave) onto the shallow reef where the water depth was in or around 0.9 metres. HHJ Bird dismissed the claim on that basis and upheld that the risk assessments produced by the site were, therefore, adequate. 

References

Carl Wayne Bennion v Adventure Parc Snowdonia Limited [2023] EWHC 3334 (KB). Available at: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/kb/2023/3334 accessed 15 September 2024. 

Citation. Jacklin, D. 2024.  Incident Report: Carl Bennion. Water Incident Research Hub, 20 September. Available at: https://www.thewirh.com/blog/carl-bennion accessed 20 September 2024.