Hot Weather Warning

[Canary42]

Beware open water swimming

Another tragedy https://uk.yahoo.com/news/boy-16-dies-getting-difficulties-151836687.html

My best friend at school drowned while swimming on the Norfolk Broads so I know how awful it will be for this lad's friends and family.

Read this article and heed the advice.

[emmie]

i have nothing to add, except that i rarely go swimming and certainly wouldn't in the Norfolk Broads, highly dangerous.

[10ClarionSt]

It has been my unfortunate experience to be present not once, but twice, when youngsters drowned in a heat wave, back in the 80's in Heaton Park, Manchester.

Apologies for repeating the following experience in Heaton Park in the late 90's.

Late evening in August, I was chipping some golf balls onto a green at the side of Blackfish Pond on Heaton Park Golf Course when two teenage boys came just to the side of me, only a few yards away. One of them started taking his clothes off and handing them to his friend. I asked what he was doing. He said he'd been fishing at this spot earlier and had dropped his wallet in the water and it had £30 in, so he was going to dive in and retreive it. I asked him not to, as he would probably encounter something called cold water shock, which would take his breath away and might bring on heart failure whilst under water. The pond is quite deep at the side and these things could happen to him merely 10ft down. I explained that I'd seen this before and I didn't want to be at an inquest where his dad would hear me say that I asked him not to go in. For the sake of £30, it wasn't worth his life. I told him he could always earn another £30 somewhere else. At this point, he started whispering something to his friend. They exchanged words, then the boy got dressed and they left without saying anything else. I like to think I saved that boys life that evening. I just hope others are on hand at these places to give out similar warnings. Still waters do indeed run deep and are very deceptive, especially to younger people.

[Cloverjo]

How terribly sad. And well done, 10CS. Many people would have just kept quiet.

[10ClarionSt]

Thank you. Well, I'd seen it before, Cloverjo. Didn't want to be a witness for the third time.