The last dramatic moments of British TV presenter Michael Mosley’s life have been reconstructed by Greek police with the help of CCTV footage, which shows him very close to calling for help, media in Greece and Britain have reported.
Greek rescuers searched for Michael Mosley on the island of Symi for 3 daysPhoto: Yui Mok / PA Images / Profimedia
Mosley, Britain’s best-known medical journalist, is reported to have disappeared last week after he said he was going to Pedi village along the beach of Agios Nikolaos on the island of Symi and did not return.
He was last seen alive on Wednesday around 1:30 pm when he left his phone on the beach with friends when he went for a walk to Pedi.
CCTV footage shows Masli was caught in the village holding an umbrella to protect himself from the sun when he arrived at Pedi at around 1.50pm. At 13:57 a separate camera captured him at Peddie Marina, heading north-east.
I don’t know why he decided to continue on his way instead of stopping at the village, as he told people he knew. But his wife, Dr Bailey Moseley, said after his body was found on Sunday that he had “climbed incredibly high, gone the wrong way and crashed in an area that could not easily be seen by an extended search party”.
The last time he was alive was recorded by a bar’s CCTV camera on the beach in Agia Marina.
The last moments of Michael Mosley’s life
Footage shows him trying to climb a rock slope before collapsing near the bar’s perimeter fence. The TV presenter looks tired and confused in these pictures, having trouble getting down the incline.
“About 30 meters from where we found him, he started crawling a little bit. Then it took him half an hour or more for a normal person to cover 30 meters in two to five minutes,” said Ilias Savaris, manager of Agia Marina bar. Sky News.
“So he was still crawling and then he fell and passed out right where we found him,” he explained.
His widow said the family was comforted by the thought that he “came so close” to safety. The couple’s four children joined search efforts on the Turkish coast island of Simi after the TV presenter was reported missing last Thursday.
British journalist David Brown, one of the reporters on the scene, filmed what Michael Mosley’s last hundred meters of descent looked like. Brown, chief correspondent for The Times, came under fire the next day for his coverage of the discovery of the TV presenter’s body.
The final agonizing 100m of Dr Michael Moseley’s ill-fated walk. He was too close and left the marked path in a desperate attempt to get help. The place where he fell is to the right of the fence. I didn’t go there out of respect for an incredible man. pic.twitter.com/gqO1MTACKV
— David Brown (@DavidhBrown) June 10, 2024
Local investigators put the time of death at 4:00 p.m., but the exact cause of death will not be known until an autopsy and toxicology tests are performed on the nearby island of Rhodes, where her body was taken. Investigators believe he died of exhaustion from exposure to the sun.
The mayor of Symi, Lefteris Papakalodoukas, said last Wednesday that the area where Mosley disappeared was “difficult because it is a very rocky area”. Papakalotokas described the heat on the island on the day the TV presenter disappeared as “unbearable”, adding that “someone could easily leave in such circumstances”.
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