Maj Wattanathon Bumrongthin of the Cherng Talay Police reported that he was notified of the death at 3pm.
The woman, Rosmarie Sigrist-Thali, had arrived in Phuket on holiday with her husband, Peter Sigrist, 79, on Thursday (Jan 9), Maj Wattanathon reported.
The couple were staying at a hotel in Bang Tao and were to leave the hotel on Jan 30, he said.
The couple entered the water at the beach at about 2:30pm. “They were just playing in the water together. There were no waves,” Maj Wattanathon said in his report.
Everything was fine until Mr Sigrist turned around and saw his wife face down in the water, he also noted.
“People around there helped to carry Mrs Sigrist back to the beach and performed CPR, but they were unable to revive her,” Maj Wattanathon noted.
An ambulance soon arrived to rush Mrs Sigrist to Thalang Hospital, where she was formally pronounced dead.
“Doctors reported that Mrs Sigrist died from drowning because she had suffered a lack of oxygen and respiratory failure. Her body is at Thalang hospital,” Maj Wattanathon noted in his report.
No explanation was given as to why Ms Sigrist would have succumbed to drowning in such calm conditions was given, or any attempt to identify a pre-existing medical condition that may have led to her drowning.
Maj Wattanathon did report that Swiss consular officials had been informed of her death and that arrangements were being made to have her body repatriated to Switzerland.