Family of missing teen to search riverbank area
Young man swept away by Bow River current near Seebe Dam after cliff jump
About 20 friends and family members of presumed drowning victim Blessing Paul will be accompanied by 10 volunteers on Tuesday, as they head to the mountains to search for the missing 16-year-old.
Search and rescue efforts began Saturday after reports came in that a young man was swept away by the current on the Bow River near Seebe Dam, where a group of people had been cliff jumping.
Cochrane RCMP immediately dispatched a helicopter along with undertaking zodiac boat patrols of the area, which is roughly a 1.1-kilometre stretch from the cliffs where Paul jumped to where the dam starts.
After an unsuccessful search, RCMP with Cochrane Search and Rescue brought in 15 volunteers to examine the shoreline around the area in case Paul had made his way out of the river onto land.
On Sunday, a diving team used sonar to map the river, but Cpl. Troy Savinkoff with Cochrane RCMP said poor visibility made the process tedious.
“The area has extremely difficult visibility of three to four inches so when we’re talking about diving and putting a camera in the water, you practically have to bump into an object to see it,” he said.
In the meantime, Savinkoff said friends and family will be allowed to conduct their own ground search of the area Tuesday with the assistance of RCMP and search and rescue to ensure the safety of the group.
“This area is an area of concern for us ... This particular year has been very bad,” Savinkoff said, adding three other drownings in the area — one in 2012 and two in 2014 — demonstrate the site is dangerous.
The area in question is on private property — owned by Transalta, which operates the Horseshoe dam — and borders land owned by the Stoney Nakoda First Nation and CP Rail. Savinkoff said that means to access the area, people pass at least a dozen no-trespassing signs.
“Security from the First Nation have had a constant presence out there. But we’re not talking about five, 10, 20 people; we’re talking 50, 60, 100 people trespassing and we’re looking ahead to get all these partners at the table to look at enforcement.” Also Monday, the body of a Calgary man, another presumed drowning victim, was found near Carseland, Alta., after he had gone for a swim in the Bow River near Strathmore and failed to surface Sunday evening. Reports came in around 9:30 p.m. Sunday and a search was immediately executed, but it was halted shortly after due to the late hour and limited visibility. Upon restarting the search Monday morning, the man’s body was located in the afternoon.
RCMP will not be releasing the name of the victim. The incident marks the eighth confirmed drowning death since the start of the summer within RCMP jurisdiction across the province, but outside of the cities of Edmonton and Calgary.
In the most recent data available, from 2013 to 2017 Lifesaving Society of Alberta reported 73 per cent of drowning victims are male. The majority (32 per cent) of the 234 water-related deaths in Alberta over that five-year span took place in rivers, followed by lakes and ponds at 24 per cent.
Kelly Carter, CEO of the non-profit drowning prevention and education organization, said rivers present unique risks and dangers. More people may be venturing to natural bodies of water amid COVID-19 — looking for summer escapes close to home — but many individuals are not properly educated regarding the risks involved.
“This year it’s been a very wet summer; we’ve seen higher water flows and that means stronger currents in many cases in a lot of the rivers across Alberta and that’s played a factor in the number of drownings or presumed drownings,” he said. “Hazards can change and with that the depth changes, the current changes and it can become much more dangerous.”
Carter said pillars of water safety include practices such as wearing a life-jacket whenever you’re in a boat, being sure to watch children closely near water and avoiding alcohol and other intoxicants when in, on or around water.
In July, the City of Calgary officially proclaimed the third week of the month as National Drowning Prevention Week in an effort to bring awareness to the issue, which represents the second leading cause of death in children under 10, according to the Lifesaving Society.
We’ve seen higher water flows and that means stronger currents in many cases in a lot of the rivers across Alberta ...