No sign of a lifebuoy in the water.

That’s what stuck in my mind.

Among the crowd of bystanders - ordinary passers-by just like you and me, just like our friends, family, relatives, just like our hiking/golfing/drinking/cycling/book-club buddies – some were so desperately eager to film the last seconds of a struggling man’s life, but they never threw a lifebuoy.

The tragedy unfolded on a warm Wednesday evening after two men went swimming in the River Lee.

Both got into difficulties. As a burgeoning crowd looked on and some of them filmed, one man made it to safety. The other tragically drowned.

The emergency personnel who arrived saw no lifebuoys bobbing around in the water.

The Taoiseach has said, with characteristic restraint, that the incidences of people filming were a “very sad and regrettable feature of modern life”.

I would dare to go further.

I would shout ‘Shame’!

Whoever filmed the awful tragedy which culminated in the death of 33-year-old Luke Hyde should perhaps ask themselves some searching questions.

‘When did I become someone who would stand back and film such a scene?’

‘At what point in my life did I replace empathy and compassion with apathy?’

‘How have I........

© Evening Echo