LILLE: A British man died in a French hospital early on Sunday after falling ill while swimming across the Channel from Dover in southern England, police said.

The man, in his forties, arrived in the northern port city of Calais shortly before midnight, brought in by a safety boat that was travelling alongside him, a police spokesman said.

His heart had stopped and he was in a state of cardio-respiratory arrest when the emergency services took him to hospital. Despite attempts to revive him, the man died shortly before 3am.

In July 2013, a British woman in her 30s died in a Boulogne hospital after trying to swim the Channel to raise money for charity.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2016