A petition for greater lifeguard cover in Hartlepool started by a woman whose best friend drowned more than 20 years ago has passed 3,000 signatures.

Becca Ringwood was 10 when her close family friend Jordan Moon, aged eight, died in 2003 on the same beach at Seaton Carew where two men lost their lives on Sunday.

She previously campaigned for years for lifeguards and says the recent tragedy has brought the trauma of Jordan’s death back.

Mum of three Becca, now 33, of Hartlepool started an online petition to Hartlepool Borough Council for greater protection at the beach on Sunday night.

Jordan Moon died at Seaton Carew beach in 2003.

placeholder image — Jordan Moon died at Seaton Carew beach in 2003.

Becca said: “It’s brought everything back to the point where I’m traumatised again. I feel I’m going through all the same emotions again.

“More so I’m disappointed in myself because I fought and fought for years for lifeguards.

“I kept getting told there’s not enough water based incidents, not enough funding, not enough deaths, things like that.

“I said ‘how many lives is it going to take?’ Now this has happened I really wish I’d kept going with it.”

More than 3,200 people so far have added their names to the petition at change.org.

It calls on the council – which has said it will review water safety arrangements after Sunday’s tragic deaths – to extending lifeguard services outside the school holidays.

“Sometimes in the Easter holidays we can have heatwaves and people go to the beach,” said Becca.

“I would like it to be an option from April. Not just Seaton, but the Headland and Fish Sands, and a no swim zone at Steetley.”

Becca noted Hartlepool’s week-long Swim Safe open water and beach safety course but said it is just aimed at children, and not all schools take part.

“What about home school children and the public?” she added. “If lifeguards had been on the beach on Sunday they could have kept people out the water.

“They could have been the ones that were there, trained to save.”

Following the two men’s deaths on Sunday, Hartlepool Borough Council leader Graham Harrison said: “Given the tragic events of recent days, I have asked for a full review of the current water safety arrangements at Seaton Carew and across the borough's coastline.”