Daring Canadian trio mourned online after deaths at falls
MONTREAL: Thousands were mourning Friday on social media after the freak deaths of three adventurous young video bloggers who suffered fatal injuries after slipping in a powerful river above a waterfall in western Canada.
The three childhood companions – Ryker Gamble, Alexey Lyakh and Megan Scraper – had joined friends on an outing to 335-metre-high Shannon Falls, 50 kilometres from the Pacific coast city of Vancouver, British Columbia.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said the three were “swimming in one of the pools at the top of Shannon Falls” when “they slipped and fell into a pool 30 metres below.”
Lyakh and Gamble lost their footing while trying to help Scraper after she slipped into the surging waters of Shannon Creek, according to witnesses quoted by the Vancouver Sun.
Rescue teams working on the ground and by helicopter were unable to find and recover the three bodies until Wednesday evening.
The RCMP noted in a statement that the terrain around the falls was ‘extremely difficult, very dangerous,’ with a ‘heavy’ water flow.
The victims, all Canadians in their late 20s or early 30s, had gained fame in 2011 after creating a YouTube channel called ‘High on Life.’
More than 500,000 subscribers there – and another one million on Instagram – followed their often-risky adventures, which sometimes defied basic rules of safety. — AFP