A Drowning

We had a very sad drowning here on Saturday night (not that any of them are happy).   We went to bed at 1 a.m. and the call came in on my fire pager at 2:05 a.m. to respond for a water rescue. Three guys had jumped off the Sioux Narrows bridge after an evening of drinking in the pub next to the bridge.  One didn't come up.   We keep the fire boat at a marina 7 miles from the bridge down town, by water.  An interesting trip in the pitch black, (no moon that night), at high speed, well, 33 mph - not quite full throttle. Richard kept his face pressed against the window while another guy watched the GPS map and the radar.  I was with Richard, peering out the window.  Interesting that despite being a gadget junky, Richard still prefers to see it with his own eyes rather than trust the radar and GPS.  But the trip only took us about 12 minutes.  It's also interesting how many firemen show up when the fire boat is involved.... we had 8 of us on the boat and another one drove the fire truck to the scene.  We're lucky to get 4 or 5 to a car accident.   Despite our conviction that the guy had gone straight to the bottom, we searched the shoreline for over 3 hours just in case he got carried away by the current and was passed out somewhere on the shore. Not a pleasant experience, and one that brought back a few unwelcome memories. Besides the fireboat, there were 4 other boats searching, including one with the local cop on board.  At about 5 a.m. the OPP from Kenora arrived with their boat and an underwater search camera.  They found him by about 6:30 a.m., right below the bridge, where he had jumped.  (I'm sure  our fire chief, will be putting an underwater camera into the next budget).   It's a pretty risky thing to do, jump off a bridge like that, especially on a night as black as that was, and when the water temperature is only 17 deg.  The water there is only 32 ft. deep, but I doubt that he would have hit the bottom.  He probably took in air in the initial gasp reflex and then got disoriented in the dark.  He probably panicked as well.  I don't know how high the bridge is off the water, but it could be 30 ft., I suppose.   He was either 22 or 27 or 32, depending on which news report you believe.  He apparently had a wife and a kid.  He was from North Dakota, as was one of the other guys.  I guess his family has been coming up here for years, and staying at The Rod and Reel, at the other end of the bridge. The third guy was a bartender from the pub... he's only been here for two days so may not have been warned off jumping.  He says he'll never do that again.   The guy who died had probably jumped off the bridge before . . . it seems to be the macho thing to do around here, and despite the efforts of the pub staff to stop it, many are still doing it.  In fact a few days earlier, a guy dove off the top of the superstructure,  possibly a 60 ft. dive,  but he apparently knew what he was doing.  Even a lot of young kids do it. One 9 year old we know, broke his leg landing on a rock a few years ago. No one has died doing it before, although there have been more than a few broken bones, sprains and, in one case, an all-over bruise on a native chap, who for a few days could really be called a "red man" after he did a belly flop from the bridge.  Fortunately for him, the pain was dulled by a large infusion of alcohol.   Anyway,  I got home at 7:30 a.m. to find Anne sleeping on the sofa so she could hear the fire radio we have in the living room.  I then went to bed at 8:00 and slept until 1:00 p.m.   They brought a police diving team in from Thunder Bay on Sunday and they retrieved the body late Sunday afternoon.   The photo of the bridge shows the orange float marking the spot where the body is on the bottom, while waiting for the diving team to arrive.