A GRIEVING widow said she hoped her husband’s tragic death at a North-East beauty spot would warn people of the dangers of jumping into cold water.

Cheryl Abdul made the heartfelt plea after an inquest into her husband Wadud Abdul’s death at Low Force, near Middleton-in-Teesdale, Barnard Castle, on Friday, May 29.

Mr Abdul, from the Westgate area of Newcastle, had been enjoying a family day out to celebrate his 36th birthday when he got into difficulty while swimming in the River Tees.

His failure to resurface prompted a major multi-agency search lasting more than 24-hours.

Specialist divers eventually recovered the father-of-two’s body close to the 5.5m-high waterfall where he jumped into the water.

An inquest in Crook, County Durham, on Tuesday heard Mr Abdul had died from cold water immersion.

Pathologist Dr Sree Mussunoor said the shock of entering the cold water had caused the Hadrian School teacher’s heart to stop beating and described this as random response which cannot be foreseen.

“Usually in these circumstances death happens within two to three minutes,” he said. “It is very short window.”

County Durham coroner Andrew Tweddle, said: "This is not an example of people misbehaving or being silly.

“It’s nothing like that at all. It was a family day out but unfortunately as Dr Mussunoor explained the body can react in a very random and unpredictable way when it gets immersed in cold water.”

He continued: “It was a very quick situation where no-one had an opportunity to do anything that could have reversed the process and given the facts of the case the only conclusion I can make was that his death was an accident.”

After the inquest, Mrs Abdul said: “I would like to thank everybody who was involved in the rescue and recovery of his body.

“Also, everybody who has given us help and support since we lost him. I really hope people can learn from this and it can help prevent other accidents from happening. If we had known the dangers of cold water we would still have Wadud with us."

Mr Abdul’s parents and two of his six siblings also attended the inquest and spoke of him as a loving and dutiful son and brother.

Inspector Andy Reeves, of Durham Police, reiterated Mrs Abdul’s warning, adding: “I would like to remind people of the dangers of cold water shock that can affect anybody, no matter how healthy they are. The water can look nice but there are dangers lurking underneath.”