The death of an Irish teenager, electrocuted while taking a shower in a holiday home in Greece, has led to calls for tighter checks on appliances at tourist accommodation. Alex McKee, 17, is said to have died instantly when picking up the showerhead in a bathroom described as “outdoor and rudimentary” on Kimolos. As the birthplace of his mother, Iphigenia, he and his family visited regularly, staying in the same stone house built more than 50 years ago.
Greek police told the Guardian an inquiry was now focused on the building’s water heater and a possible fault in the wiring. McKee, a fifth-year student in Cork, had won plaudits in Ireland for developing an innovative communication system, with two of his classmates, for people with nonverbal autism. Colm Burke, the Irish Fine Gael politician for Cork North-Central paid tribute to the teenager saying: “It is extremely sad to hear that someone so young has died so tragically.
He was a really talented young person with his whole life and huge career ahead of him. Earlier this year, he put a huge effort into getting to that stage in the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition and was awarded for his efforts.” In a nation so dependent on tourism – and with visitor numbers expected to, once again, soar this year – the incident has also shone a light on electrical standards in accommodation rented out seasonally on the Greek islands. The mayor of Kimolos, Konstantinos Vendouris, expressed profound shock over the tragedy saying it had plunged the less than 1,000-strong island into mourning.
It later emerged, however, that as a professional electrician he had signed off on the property’s electrical installation certificate in 2024 – a document that police said was also being investigated. The family signalled it would be pressing charges.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
