A STUDENT nurse on the trip of a lifetime died while going for a midnight swim with friends and had hit her head in the water.
Millie Ann Gentry, 19, was only two weeks into a month long volunteering stint in Ghana when tragedy struck.
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On March 17 last year, the trainee nurse and two friends went for a midnight swim in the sea after a few drinks in a pool bar.
Gentry, from Gomersal in Kirklees, West Yorkshire, broke a 10pm curfew when her and friends Erin Byrnes and Lewis Mallinson went into the water at 12.30pm.
YorkshireLive reported that Byrnes told an inquest in a statement that the group was pulled further into the ocean by a wave.
Mallinson, also a volunteer, said that he and the two girls were “struggling” in the water and he had “no choice but to leave them and call for help”.
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Byrnes said she tried to keep Gentry afloat and shouted for help, but could see that her friend had drowned.
Byrnes was then rescued from the sea as a group of about 30 locals kept searching to Gentry’s body.
A post mortem found that Gentry had drowned and had received a head injury while in the sea.
Her mother Tracy provided a statement to the inquest on the family’s behalf.
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She described her daughter as a “beautiful girl” with the “biggest heart” who was going to devote herself to children’s nursing.
Tracy said that Milly’s family thought she would never go through with the “biggest adventure in her young life”.
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Gentry was studying a nursing degree at Bradford University.
She said her boyfriend Elvis gave her the confidence to try new things and explore.
Christopher Holland, a director of firm The Mighty Roar organised the volunteering trip to the African nation.
He told the inquest of the safety information given the volunteers, which included advice not to swim overnight.
Senior coroner Martin Fleming concluded Gentry’s death was the result of misadventure.
Fleming said the friends had become overwhelmed in the water after having no more than a couple of drinks before the dip.
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