Oxford student dies after no one notices him drowning during bridge jumping tradition

Wesley Akum-Ojong, 19, jumped into the river at the Port Meadow beauty spot on June 21 this year to celebrate the end of his first-year exams as part of a tradition called ‘trashing’

A gifted Oxford student drowned after jumping into a river alongside 200 others as onlookers filmed on their phones.

Wesley Akum-Ojong, 19, jumped into the river at the Port Meadow beauty spot on June 21 this year to celebrate the end of his first-year exams as part of a tradition called ‘trashing’.

The first year politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) student was filmed leaping from the bridge with others and footage shows him resurfacing but he did not make it back to shore. It wasn’t until 45 minutes later that friends realised he was missing and called 999, an inquest heard.

Mr Akum-Ojong, a former pupil of Watford Grammar School for Boys, jumped from the bridge at 6.52pm and the emergency services were called at 7.29pm. Firefighters recovered the teenager's body from the bottom of the River Thames at 8.10pm and medics spent an hour and 20 minutes trying to revive the teen, the court heard.

Tragically Wesley Akum-Ojong, from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, was pronounced dead at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital at 9.43pm.

The longstanding tradition of trashing sees Oxford students covered with food, confetti and alcohol by their peers upon completing their finals.

Coroner Nicholas Graham heard Mr Akum-Ojong was wearing "heavy clothes" at the time of the incident and a video of the event shows him appearing to be "struggling" in the water, but "nobody seems to have realised', according to one of the attending police officers.

A witness, known as Student A, told police how “lots of students” walked to Port Meadow following their final exams covered in “confetti and powder” before jumping into the river to “wash it all off” as part of the tradition. After the group jumped in together she told police that she had seen Mr Akum-Ojong resurface and assumed he would swim to the bank with the rest.

It wasn't until she found his phone still on the bank that she realised he had never made it out the alarm was raised. Another witness, Student B, said she had been swimming at the site for an hour and “found it hard to understand how someone could've missed Wesley being in distress in the water.”

A pathologist recorded the cause of death as drowning and Mr Graham, Area Coroner for Oxfordshire, recorded a verdict of accidental death adding that Mr Akum-Ojong's death after the incident at the 'popular wild swimming area' was a 'tragedy'.

The student's mother, Patience Akum-Ojong and other relatives challenged the pathologist’s finding, had queried why more blood than water had been found in the teenager's lungs.