A woman has criticised police for “standing and watching” as members of the public tried to revive a man who was critically injured in a diving accident.Zuri Samuels was hosting a 60th birthday party for her mother, Rhoda Samuels, at Admiralty House Park beach on Saturday when the victim hurt his head and neck while diving from a cliff into the sea.The man, a 41-year-old father of three from St David’s, remained in a critical condition in hospital last night.Although Ms Samuels, 41, did not know him, his accident brought the party to a halt and plunged her into a frantic effort to save his life by doing cardiopulmonary resuscitation [CPR.] It was like 15 minutes I was kneeling on the sand breathing for this man,” she said. “It was overwhelming.”As The Royal Gazette reported yesterday, a group of friends who were having a barbecue nearby managed to tow the man out of the sea and onto the beach. He had no pulse and was not breathing at the time.The victim’s name has not been formally released by the police, and his family could not be reached for comment yesterday.The Royal Gazette asked the police service whether officers carry first aid kits in their cars as a matter of course and whether they are trained in CPR. We also asked if they would help a member of public if they were carrying out CPR when the police arrived.In addition, we asked how many officers attended the accident scene, how long it took them to arrive and what they did when they got there.A spokesman responded: “Police officers have basic first aid training and will always render first aid when needed; but they would not usually interrupt a person performing CPR unless it was absolutely necessary to do so. Also, a basic first aid kit is carried in police vehicles.”He did not answer the other questions.Ms Samuels, who received training in CPR through her job as a dental hygienist, became aware of the incident when she saw the man being brought onto the shore.She called 911 while two members of the public, followed by an off-duty nurse and paramedic, began resuscitation attempts.Ms Samuels took over doing the breathing part of the CPR while the nurse carried on pumping his chest. The victim’s wife and children were at the scene and Ms Samuels said: “His children were there screaming, the wife was screaming, I still continued to do the CPR. His pulse was extremely weak.”A Christian DJ had been playing tunes at the birthday party and Ms Samuels said: “The DJ stopped the music to give them space, and he was praying.”She criticised the response of the police who arrived before the ambulance crew, saying: “The police came and brought nothing. They took forever to come; they brought nothing. They stood there and just watched.”She’d hoped the first officer on the scene would be able to provide gloves and a mask to provide a barrier while she was breathing for the man, who was expelling fluid from his body.However, she said: “He was just standing there, just watching. I kid you not. I think he should have at least had a first aid kit in the car.”Another bystander, Alex Jones, who also helped with the rescue effort, told this newspaper on Monday that the police did not immediately respond to requests for a first aid kit.Ms Samuels noticed other officers arrive later but she did not notice what they were doing because she was concentrating on the CPR. When paramedics arrived, they provided a mask to put on the man’s face.Everyone at the party was left in shock after the man was rushed to hospital. “It put a dampener on everything. We didn’t carry on. I just took everything home,” said Ms Samuels.Nonetheless, she is pleased she could help.