Family photo
Nicola Wheatley 40, was one of four paddleboarders killed after descending a weir in Haverfordwest
The moment Darren Wheatley had to tell his seven-year-old son that his mother had died is something that will stay with him for the rest of his life.
Nicola Wheatley, 40, was one of four paddleboarders killed after descending a weir in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, on 30 October 2021.
Paddleboard firm owner and ex-police officer Nerys Lloyd is currently serving a 10-and-a-half year sentence for causing their deaths.
Darren and his family had spent a frantic morning at Withybush Hospital desperately waiting for news before he was asked to identify Nicola’s body while his son Oscar waited nearby with relatives.
“I won’t forget the look on his face,” said Darren, in his first interview, which marks the fourth anniversary of the tragedy.
People had been excited about going on the trip run by Nerys Lloyd’s Salty Dog Co Ltd
Several hours later, 80 miles (128km) away in Merthyr Tydfil, police would tell Teresa Hall they believed her only daughter Morgan Rogers, 24, had also been killed in the incident.
It wasn’t until the next day that she was able to identify her body.
Teresa Hall
Morgan, 24, was the “light of everybody’s life”, her mother Teresa said
“I just remember going over to her and shaking her, trying to wake her up… this couldn’t have happened, how could this have happened?” said Teresa, who is also speaking for the first time.
Army veteran and dad-of-three Paul O’Dwyer, 42, also died that day.
Dental hygienist and mother-of-one, Andrea Powell, 41, was resuscitated at the scene but died six days later due to her injuries.
Darren Wheatley
Nicola and Darren’s children were aged seven and two when she died in October 2021
On the day of the tragedy both Darren and Teresa knew nothing of Nerys Lloyd.
More than a year later, a report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) would find the deaths were “tragic and avoidable” and identify a catalogue of errors on the day they died.
Lloyd would eventually plead guilty to gross negligence manslaughter and a judge would criticise her “abysmal” approach to health and safety.
Both Darren and Teresa said they lived with huge anger towards Lloyd, for the errors she made that day, because she has never apologised to her victims’ families, and for the way she behaved in the months after the tragedy and while at court.
“She’s destroyed my family life, she’s destroyed my children’s family life… their mother will never come back,” said Darren.
“Anger doesn’t even come close to how I feel,” said Teresa.
“I am in torture… no parent should have to bury their child [because of] something that was so unnecessary.”
Teresa Hall
Morgan was a deputy manager for Aldi and had been preparing to join the fire brigade
Recalling the last time she saw her daughter is agonising for Teresa.
“That last conversation we had, I go over it and over it and over it and I just wish I’d told her not to go,” said Teresa through tears.
“I just said to look after herself and I hope she had a good time and I gave her a hug.
“I was doing dinner on the Sunday and I said to her ‘you couldn’t get me some runner beans on your way home?’
“I thought she’d be safe, she was going with what I thought was a reputable tour but it turned out to be the worst mistake of her life.”
‘Take care, my baby boy’
Darren said Nicola had been excited about going on the trip run by Lloyd’s Salty Dog Co Ltd.
Weeks earlier he and her mother had bought her a paddleboard for her 40th birthday.
He too had waved her off on the Friday from the home they shared in Pontarddulais, Swansea, with Oscar and their daughter Ffion.
After spending the Friday night at a rented property in Tenby with the rest of the group, Nicola phoned Darren at 06:40 BST that Saturday morning.
Oscar had been unwell overnight so she wanted to speak to them both to check how he was doing.
“The weather was atrocious and I said to Nicola ‘really you’re going on the water?’… she said ‘they’ve said to us it’s safe, we can do it’.”
He broke down recalling the last thing he heard Nicola say.
“Nicola’s last words to Oscar were ‘take care, my baby boy’… and that’s the last I spoke to her,” said Darren.
Darren Wheatley
Darren met Nicola, a poisons information specialist, in 2002 and they married in 2009
The MAIB report, published in December 2022, sets out exactly what happened that day.
Just before 08:00 the group of nine arrived in a van in Haverfordwest
Before parking up, Lloyd and Paul O’Dwyer, Lloyd’s co-instructor, stopped off in the town centre to inspect the river.
By about 08:49 everyone from the group was afloat and they set off downriver heading for Burton Ferry, with Lloyd out in front and Paul at the back.
They passed through Haverfordwest town centre five minutes later, with one of the group playing music through a portable speaker.
Minutes later they approached the weir.
Lloyd instructed those close by to follow her and keep to the centre of the river.
At 08:56, kneeling on her stand-up paddleboard (SUP), Lloyd was the first to descend the fish pass in the centre of the weir and was swept quickly downriver.
Andrea was the third paddleboarder to descend, Nicola was the sixth and Morgan was the eighth.
While the rest of the group was washed clear and swept downstream, Andrea, Nicola and Morgan were sucked into the hydraulic jump, or spin, a recirculating flow similar to a washing machine at the foot of the weir.
PA Media
Paul O’Dwyer and Andrea Powell also died following the incident
Monitoring from the rear of the group, Paul saw something was wrong, paddled to the right hand side of the river and left the water.
On spotting some of the group were in difficulty, he removed his leash connecting his SUP to his leg, grabbed his SUP and jumped into the river above the weir before being carried over the right hand side of the weir.
At 09:02 a passerby spotted the paddleboarders in difficulty in the water and dialled 999.
He then fetched a lifebuoy and repeatedly threw a line to the struggling paddleboarders but none were able to grasp it.
Eight minutes later, emergency services began to arrive at the scene.
A multi-agency response followed, involving coastguard rescue teams and helicopter, police, fire and ambulance services, air ambulance and RNLI.
Andrea was recovered from the water close to the weir by members of the public.
She was resuscitated at the scene but died six days later due to injuries caused by drowning.
Nicola and Morgan’s bodies were recovered from the river by fellow paddleboarders but both died at the scene.
Paul’s body was located further downriver by the coastguard helicopter at about 11:00.
Darren Wheatley
Darren says Nicola was “very much a loving mother and a lovely person”
Three days after Nicola’s funeral, her daughter Ffion turned three.
“It was just hell, it was awful, it was at that point that I crumbled,” said Darren, who moved the family in with his parents for support.
Then as they prepared for the first Christmas since losing their loved ones, both Darren and Teresa said Lloyd’s social media posts added to their distress.
A photo she shared of herself enjoying a festive day out over Christmas left both reeling.
“We had the worst Christmas I’ve ever had in my life,” said Darren.
“I had crying, grieving children that wanted their mammy there for Christmas morning… Nerys was just living her life as if nothing had happened.”
This hit Teresa hard too.
“It’s Christmas and I’ve lost my daughter and she’s out and about in Cardiff having a good old time, enjoying her life,” she said.
“She’s callous, so callous.”
Both spent much of that Christmas not knowing the facts of what happened to their loved ones that day. By the following Christmas, the picture was becoming more clear.
What went wrong?
In December 2022, the MAIB report aimed at preventing future incidents found:
- The tour leaders were qualified to teach stand-up paddleboarding to beginners and novices in benign conditions but not lead tours on fast-flowing rivers
- The paddleboarders lost their lives because the leaders were unaware of the treacherous conditions at the weir. They had not visited the weir before setting off so were unaware of the high river level and tidal conditions
- They did not heed a flood alert which was in force at the time of the incident
- The participants were not briefed on the presence of the weir or how to descend it
- The group did not heed a sign close to their launch point which warned users the weir was dangerous and advised them to exit the river and carry their craft around it
- The use of personal protective equipment such as clothing, buoyancy aids and leashes was inconsistent across the group
- The group did not follow recognised advice that stand-up paddleboarders on fast-flowing water should wear a quick-release waist leash and a personal flotation device. At Lloyd’s sentencing Mrs Justice Stacey said: “The ankle leashes attached to the boards of those stuck in the hydraulic spin, which are totally unsuitable for fast-flowing water, made it even harder for them to get free.”
- Lloyd had not produced a written risk assessment for the trip
- The competency of tour members who had not been previous customers of Salty Dog Co Ltd were not assessed
- Participants were not required to complete a legal disclaimer, medical declarations, or provide emergency contact details before starting the tour, which delayed the police contacting the families of those who had died
MAIB
The weir in Haverfordwest, where the paddleboarders got into trouble
The findings left Darren bewildered.
“Why didn’t you tell the party there was a weir they were going over?” he said.
“Why didn’t you tell them it was there because I’m damned sure Nicola wouldn’t have got on that water… you don’t go over a weir on a paddleboard.”
“I want to know why,” said Teresa.
“Why didn’t she do the safety checks and is she sorry? Is she actually sorry?”
Dyfed Powys Police
Lloyd was sacked by South Wales Police in November 2021 for a matter unrelated to the paddleboarding incident
Lloyd pleaded guilty to gross negligence manslaughter and was sentenced during a two-day hearing at Swansea Crown Court in April.
“She came with an entourage of people, supporters – this woman had just destroyed four families and she still carried on as though nothing had happened,” said Darren.
“She turned it into a circus,” added Teresa.
Darren said he lived with anger every day.
“We haven’t even had an apology,” he said.
“We’ve had no acknowledgement of what she’s done. Yes, she’s put her hands up and pleaded guilty but she’s never said anything to us as families.”
Teresa now cares for Morgan’s dog Peaches
It has now been four years since the tragedy.
Teresa has taken on Morgan’s beloved dog Peaches.
“Peaches was her everything, her best friend,” she said.
“I will always look after that to the best I can. She’s still Morgan’s, she’s not mine.”
The dedication on Nicola’s bench reads “always look for rainbows” because Darren said she always saw the best in everyone and everything
Darren has taken early retirement from work so he can focus on his children.
It pains him knowing that Nicola has missed out on seeing their children grow up.
Darren and Teresa both gave tributes outside Swansea Crown Court after Lloyd was sentenced
“She never got to see Ffion start nursery school and the pain of that is horrible,” he said.
“But I’ve got to carry on.”
