A woman has spoken of her shock and grief after seeing emergency crews battling in vain to save a man pulled from a river on Sunday.

Hayley Anyiwo, 40, who lives by River Mole, saw ambulances and ran outside to find paramedics resuscitating the man by a footpath in Leatherhead.

Ms Anyiwo, an auxiliary nurse from Minchin Close, offered her assistance and gave towels to three men who had gone into the river to pull out the canoeist.

She said: “I was watching while they were resuscitating the guy.

“They were all working on him but after a while the arms start to hurt so they put a machine on, which was doing the pumping as well.

“They just were not giving up. They tried everything.”

The man, thought to be in his 50s, was pronounced dead at 6pm on April 14.

On Sunday night, Ms Anyiwo lit a candle at the spot where he was pulled out and has left flowers.

She said: “I needed some time. I have experienced death in hospital before but never like that. It just hurts a lot.”

Ms Anyiwo has heard the cream canoe is thought to have got caught under the wall after it flipped over and the man became stuck underneath.

She said: “I don’t know if he was struggling. That’s what’s going through my head at the moment.

“Just the thought of him maybe suffocating there or just kind of floating.

“I feel bad because I was in the garden and I keep thinking ‘oh my god’ I didn’t know.”

She said the white man was wearing a lifejacket and probably would have been an experienced canoeist.

She said: “I don’t think anyone would go out on the river, the way it was yesterday, not knowing what you were doing.

“It was taking logs down, it was really fierce.”

She said canoeists often go down the river and unload canoes from cars parked where the ambulances and fire engines were parked on Sunday. 

She said: “It’s horrible. But the firemen and everyone were so good, I can’t sing their praises enough. They were brilliant.”

Another woman Amber Ward, 20, saw the emergency services, including an air ambulance, by the river on Sunday evening.

Ms Ward said: “It was quite morbid and sad because it was such a sunny day. It’s just a horrible accident.”

Surrey police said the man is believed to have fallen from a canoe into the water and the death is being treated as unexplained at present.

Did you see what happened? Call 020 8722 6337 or email: alice.foster@london.newsquest.co.uk.