British woman dies on cross-Channel charity swim
A British woman has died a mile off the coast of France after almost completing an attempt to swim across the Channel to raise money for charity.
Susan Taylor, a 34-year-old accountant from Barwell, Leicestershire, became ill on Sunday afternoon when she was only a mile away from finishing the charity swim. She was airlifted into a French navy helicopter and flown to a hospital in Boulogne-sur-Mer but was declared dead at around 7pm.
Taylor set off from the UK in the early hours of Sunday for a swim which aimed to raise money for Diabetes UK and the Rainbows children's hospice in Loughborough. She was swimming alongside a support boat but as she entered Wissant Bay, near Cap Gris Nez, she got into "serious difficulty", a French police source said.
Taylor's support crew requested a defibrillator by radio at around 5pm, and the French navy evacuated her to hospital. "She was swimming from Britain, and was well supported," the police source said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/2013/jul/15/british-woman-dies-channel-swim