A Kenyan nurse living in Canada drowned at a hotel swimming pool while live streaming the horrifying moment on Facebook last week. Hellen Wendy Nyabuto, 24, died within minutes after she dived into the pool, while the tragic incident got recorded on her mobile phone. Her father is now pleading for donations to fly her body back home for burial.
The spine-chilling video shows Nyabuto diving into the deep end of a pool at the Key Motel in Chastworth, Ontario, on Thursday where she was staying with a guest. Video of the incident posted on social media shows her diving in from the shallow end and struggling to float above the water.
Dead in Pool
Nyabuto started the live stream and went swimming in the pool, according to the Toronto Star. According to the outlet, Nyabuto was smiling, swimming, and speaking to online friends and followers while live-streaming the tragic event from the shallow end of the pool.
She moved out of the stream's frame and into the deep end, where she seemed to be struggling and could be heard asking for assistance. Following that, the live stream goes dark for several hours.
Facebook had subsequently taken down the live stream but the video is still available on Twitter. Nyabuto was a health worker living in Toronto.
Her body was discovered several hours later after two other men, who were also staying at the hotel went to the pool later in the day. The two men initially mistook her for a poodle due to her long, curly hair and multicolored one-piece but later realized that it was a dead body, according to the Kenyan newspaper The Star.
"I'm not getting in that pool. It looks like an actual dead person," one of the two men can be heard saying in the Facebook live stream, which was still on. Other guests staying at the hotel called the front desk before Ontario Provincial Police were informed of the tragic incident.
According to The Toronto Star, the woman was in Chatsworth because she was employed by Country Lane, a long-term care nursing home. "She worked with seniors right until the end," Alfonce Nyamwaya, one of Nyabuto's close friends, told the outlet, stressing that she was one of the many health workers who had been working long hours in long-term-care homes during the Covid.
"She really had a passion for that," he added.
Tragic Death
Nyamwaya said that he came to know about Nyabuto's drowning from a text message he received from one of her friends. On Thursday night, his daughter was taken to the hospital in a hurry, and emergency personnel made repeated attempts to revive her.
Although they did not say what had happened to his daughter or why she was being taken to the hospital, Canadian authorities phoned Nyabuto to inform him of his daughter's health.
Before the catastrophe, Hellen was frequently grinning while interacting with her friends and followers on her Facebook live feed.
According to the outlet, Nyabuto immigrated to Canada in 2018 and has seen been staying there for her work. Nyabuto had not visited her homeland since going overseas, and according to Nyamwaya, family members were trying to raise money to bring her body back while making travel arrangements to Toronto.
"We need prayers. We need financial support."
According to the Nyabuto family, she was living with her younger brother in a Toronto apartment while also having a part-time job and attending nursing school. "She has been in Canada for about three years," added Enock, Enock, who comes from a family of six children, including his sister.
Nyabuto had a 10-year visa that allowed her to continue her education in Canada. She was also family's main breadwinner after her father, Kyondi Nyabuto, helped him pay for her siblings' education back in Kisii, Kenya. "Hellen was the breadwinner back home for her family," Nyamawaya told the Toronto Star. "She's been supporting them and it's left a big gap."
