DAD SAVES CHILDREN FROM LAKE
AHERO dad enjoying a day out with his family on Good Friday saved two children from drowning. Shaun Bowness was packing the car ready to leave Marine Lake in Rhyl with his wife Katie and their seven-year-old son Ollie when they heard children’s screams.
At first, the pair from Bodfari, Denbighshire, assumed it was just children playing while crabbing together by the water.
But when Katie, 30, could no longer see the pair playing, she alerted her husband who ran over to the lake and heard them shouting for help.
Shaun, 28, a taxi driver who qualified as a lifeguard some years ago, told how they had both slipped and fallen in after one tried to help the other out of the lake.
He said: “On the lake, there’s a ramp and on each side there’s a steep slippery gradient – this is where the children were.
“It looks like they slipped on the algae and naturally the slope pushed them out.
“I went to try and grab them from the land originally, but they were too far away.”
As Shaun tried to reach the children, he told how he then slipped into the lake himself.
“If anything, it meant I got into the water quicker, rather than thinking about doing it,” he said.
“The water was freezing cold. It was 9°C outside so the water was probably near to zero degrees.
“The only recollection I have is seeing one of the children pulling the other under the water to try and hold on to them. My instant thought was to get them out so I just pushed them towards the embankment and they managed to get out.”
He added: “It was just one of those things that you do. When a child is in danger, there’s no time to even think.”
Another man came running over and managed to help Shaun get out of the water.
He told how the children appeared to be OK after getting out, but were “very shaken up”.
“Thankfully, a disaster was avoided, but it could have been a very different story.”
He added: “I just hope this raises some awareness about the danger of being around water.”