{"id":638708,"date":"2026-08-15T13:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T13:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/638708\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T13:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T13:42:12","slug":"family-considers-legal-action-after-irish-teenager-dies-following-electrocution-in-shower-in-greece-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/638708\/","title":{"rendered":"Family considers legal action after Irish teenager dies following electrocution in shower in Greece \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

Alex McKee (17)<\/a> is said to have died instantly when picking up the showerhead in a bathroom described as \u201coutdoor and rudimentary\u201d on Kimolos.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are lucky there weren\u2019t two deaths as a result of electrocution,\u201d Agapitos Xanthis, a doctor on the island told Greek TV, recounting how the boy\u2019s mother had described feeling a similar surge when she called him for help. \u201cI told her to immediately turn off the mains.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKee, who was due to enter his Leaving Certificate year at Terence MacSwiney Community College in Knocknaheeny, Cork<\/a>, had been on the island barely three days when the tragedy occurred on August 9th. 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.<\/p>\n

Greek police told the Guardian an inquiry was now focused on the building\u2019s water heater and a possible fault in the wiring. \u201cThe house has been cordoned off and we have requested an independent expert to come and inspect the wiring,\u201d said an officer based in Syros with oversight of the Aegean. \u201cIt is thought the fuse box may not have had a safety valve.\u201d<\/p>\n

The teenager\u2019s body was transported to the mainland, where a postmortem conducted at a hospital in Piraeus had attributed the cause of death to electrocution.<\/p>\n

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 suffering from non-verbal autism.<\/p>\n

Colm Burke, Fine Gael TD for Cork North-Central, paid tribute to the teenager saying: \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a nation so dependent on tourism \u2013 and with visitor numbers expected to, once again, soar this year \u2013 the incident has also shone a light on electrical standards in accommodation rented out seasonally on the Greek islands.<\/p>\n

The mayor of Kimolos, Kostas Vendouris, expressed profound shock over the tragedy, saying it had plunged the less than 1,000-strong island into mourning.<\/p>\n

It later emerged, however, that as a professional electrician he had signed off on the property\u2019s electrical installation certificate in 2024 \u2013 a document that police said was also being investigated.<\/p>\n

They family signalled it would be pressing charges. \u201cThe current mayor faces huge criminal responsibility,\u201d their lawyer Stelios Voudouris told Open TV. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The death of an Irish teenager, electrocuted while taking a shower in a holiday home in Greece, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,1877,18,13,14,12364,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-638708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-cork","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-greece","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}