The father of the 24-year-old Kenyan woman, who drowned while live-streaming herself swimming in a pool in Canada, has spoken for the first time since her tragic death.
Hellen Wendy Kemunto, a nursing student in Canada, died last Thursday, Aug.18, as she interacted with her Facebook followers during her routine live-streaming session.
Kemunto loved swimming and often filmed herself enjoying her favourite hobby. She would immerse herself in the pool and momentarily turn up to talk to her audience in the course of the live-stream, according to reports.
In her final video, that has now gone viral, Kemunto was seen interacting with her social media followers before swimming to the deep side of the pool far from the filming device.
The young woman was later seen struggling to save herself as the water currents overpower her. She screamed for help but nobody was at the scene to help her immediately, reports said.
Her father, 55-year-old John Nyabuto Kiyondi, said he is yet to overcome the moment he painfully watched his daughter's life come to an untimely end.
Speaking in a video shared on Facebook, the father of six said he did not first realize why the video was trending.
"I watched the clip from my phone. I saw it was my daughter swimming excitedly. I did not see anything unusual," Kiyondi said.
"She was just swimming, talking to the camera, and she looked very happy. However, I saw people writing sorrowful comments, and I did not understand why they were saying bad news, yet she was just swimming."
The devastated father said he knew about the tragedy only when someone from Canada called him to convey the news of his daughter's demise.
"Reality hit me when a Kenyan from Canada called and explained to me that my daughter drowned as documented in the sad clip while swimming. I was so shocked and couldn't stop crying," he added.
"She is our firstborn daughter. She travelled to Canada in 2018 and was studying nursing. Wendy was my only hope."
"I struggled to teach her with my wife until she was blessed to travel abroad. She has since been supporting us and was even paying her own school fees. We had started gaining stability. I'm now back to square one," Kiyondi said before breaking down.
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