Night swim at Darwin Waterfront Precinct lagoon results in drowning

A 37-year-old woman has drowned overnight after swimming in the lagoon at the Darwin Waterfront Precinct.

St John Ambulance NT received reports just before 11:30pm on Thursday (4th April) that a woman had become unresponsive while swimming in the lagoon outside of its operating hours.

As paramedics headed to the scene, two adjacent security guards swam over to help the woman, whose body had been pulled from the water onto an inflatable obstacle course in the middle of the lagoon.

NT Police said the woman had been swimming with her sister and their partners.

NT Police Watch Commander, Karen Sanderson told the ABC “they swam out to the inflatable equipment and when the group returned, (they) noticed that one of the females was not present.

"They swam back and located her face down in the water.

"Police and (paramedics) swam out to the woman on the equipment and they weren't able to resuscitate her."

Security guard Brendan Bayliss said he was on night patrol when he "heard screaming and shouting", and located the woman's mother at the edge of the lagoon dialling triple zero.

He advised "I sort of jumped in and swam over there, and then I saw two males … were doing their best to do CPR.

"So I came over and just rolled her into the recovery position, tried to clear out her airways, and then I just put her onto her back and just told everyone we'll each take it in turns doing 30 seconds of CPR."

Senior Sergeant Sanderson said it was believed alcohol was involved in the incident and that police were investigating.

A report will be provided to the Coroner.

Image: Darwin Waterfront's lagoon.