VIDEOS of the last moments of tragic student Elliot Deslandes have been given to his heartbroken mother who said her son was having the “time of his life” before tragedy struck.
The 14-year-old Pocklington student vanished after he and his friends were struck by a huge wave off Ilha Grande, near Rio de Janeiro, on November 2.
Elliot, who was a student at Woldgate College and had travelled to Brazil for a festival with the Madhyamaka Buddhist Centre, near York, was swept out to sea. His body was found later after nine days of searching by the Brazilian authorities.
His mother, Beverly White, 32, said: “The photos I have received back and clips on DVDs show he was having the time of his life right up until the last ten minutes of his life. It is just horrible he didn’t get to come home and tell us all about it himself.”
She said the footage had shown Elliot swimming with friends off the Brazilian coast.
“They were all holding hands and jumping up and down in the water. The water got higher and higher until there was a big wave and it separated them. A couple of boys managed to scramble to the rocks and Elliot’s friend tried to get him but there was a big wave and he had gone.”
Ms White said she, her five children and her partner, Stuart McKinnon, were still coming to terms with their loss.
She said: “For my little boy just to be gone in a matter of minutes and just taken away – it’s horrible. Things will never be the same.
“It is like it is not real and we still keep expecting him to come back through the door and say ‘I’m back mum’.”
“He was the most caring, beautiful boy on the planet. We just feel we have had everything taken away from us in the blink of an eye.”
Ms White said she had found a diary that her son wrote when he was 12 or 13 which said that his wish when he died was to have his ashes sprinkled in the Amazon. The family plan to carry out his wish on what would have been his 18th birthday. Elliot’s funeral is due to take place tomorrow in his home town of Arnold, Notts.
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