Quebecers urged to heed warnings
Officials are pleading with Quebecers to respect warning signs posted near potentially dangerous waterways after the drowning deaths of two young men in the Montérégie region this past weekend.
Officials are pleading with Quebecers to respect warning signs posted near potentially dangerous waterways following the drowning deaths of two young men in the Montérégie region last weekend.
The outdoor swimming season got off to a tragic start on Sunday as a 21-year-old man was swept away by the current near a Hydro-Québec dam in St-Timothée. Hours later, another man, 27, dove into the water near Dorwin Falls in Rawdon to help a friend who was struggling, and also vanished. Both bodies were recovered by police divers on Monday.
“I think the exotic element of rivers is naturally attractive,” said Raynald Hawkins, director-general of Quebec’s Lifesaving Society, on Tuesday. “It leads people — young people and not so young people — to head to those areas. But there is also a lack of understanding about the dangers of the rivers. ... To a certain extent, we take for granted that we can defy a river, without knowing all of the dangers.”
Even if you swam in a waterway just last week, Hawkins explained, a summer storm or other natural processes can alter the riverbed in ways undetectable at the surface. Eddies, shifting sands and even underwater vortexes can form, turning what was a relatively safe place to swim into a death trap.
“In Quebec, our rivers also have moving sand. You are walking in the water and feel like you’re on solid ground ... but then you take a step and the sand moves,” Hawkins noted. “If it’s a rapid, then people realize there’s a risk, but with a river that has a relatively calm surface, you don’t see the underwater vortex.”
Dorwin Falls, where the weekend’s second drowning victim died, has become notorious for its dangerous currents. Three people have lost their lives in that area since 2011. The other victims were a man who had been walking with his wife near the water’s edge and tumbled in, and a bride who was posing for photographs and was sucked under
“We have reviewed the signage ... and the police have concluded the signage is adequate.”
ÉLYSE BELLEROSE, RAWDON MUNICIPAL OFFICIAL
by the weight of her dress.
The head of Rawdon’s municipal recreation department, Élyse Bellerose, told the Journal de Montréal that city workers revisit the riverbank each spring to ensure that the proper signage is in place to warn swimmers.
“We have reviewed the signage with the Sûreté du Québec and the police have concluded the signage is adequate,” Bellerose said in the wake of Sunday’s accident.
Hawkins acknowledged that people often ignore signs, and because the province is blessed with an abundance of rivers and streams, it’s impossible to police them. The key, therefore, becomes education — and despite last weekend’s events, the Lifesaving Society says their campaigns are working.
In the 1990s, Quebec recorded an average of 125 drowning deaths per year. A decade later, the average had dropped to about 75, and in 2013, the province saw only 51 drownings — marking the first time in 20 years that the number of deaths had fallen below 60. The downward trend seems to be continuing. As of Tuesday, officials had recorded 13 drownings so far in 2014, compared with 22 at the same time last year.
Drownings involving very young children tend to make headlines most frequently, but risk-taking 18-to-24-year-olds continue to have the highest water-related death rate of any age group in Canada.
Hawkins says the Lifesaving Society’s message is simple, and it’s the same as it is every year: If an area is not designed for swimming, then don’t go in.