/ 26 January 2005

Spate of drownings calls attention to water safety

After a recent spate of drownings across the country, police have emphasised the need for water-safety awareness.

”In Gauteng, we had 41 drownings in December and 22 in January,” police spokesperson Eugene Opperman said on Wednesday.

The bodies of three children who drowned in separate incidents were recovered on Tuesday alone.

The body of 15-year-old Brian Mtonzi from Tembisa was recovered on Tuesday from the Glenmarais stream in Kempton Park. Opperman said the boy went missing from his home on Sunday.

”It appears the boy went to swim in the river where he then drowned,” he said.

The death is being investigated.

Three-year-old Philani Nkosi was found drowned in the Natalspruit, on the East Rand, and 12-year-old Gabriel Lekiklane drowned in a dam near Brentpark in Kroonstad.

Police spokesperson Captain Rosa Benade said Lekiklane is the seventh child whose body northern Free State divers have recovered since the start of the festive season in December.

”Having to dive out children remains tragic and police divers now feel even more obligated to start looking towards projects to educate scholars in rural areas in regards to water safety,” she said.

Johannesburg Emergency Services spokesperson Malcolm Midgley said parents are not vigilant enough when their children are near water.

He said the dangers of open water in rivers, dams and streams are not understood. Some of the biggest factors causing drownings is that people simply cannot swim, and do not know the water or the currents.

Midgley said most adult drownings are connected to alcohol misuse.

Swimmers venture into unfamiliar waters where they do not know the depth or the strength of currents.

Rural dwellers are in greater danger of drowning, also because of a lack of knowledge about the dangers of water, Midgley said.

Meriel Bartlett, marketing manager for the National Sea Rescue Institute, said more drownings occur inland than at the coast. She explained this, saying: ”The previously excluded population was not exposed to swimming lessons.”

Midgley said flash floods are also dangerous as the rainfall causing them is usually in another town. The water build-up flows into rivers from upstream, and it is not possible to send out a warning.

The Medical Research Council’s (MRC) figures on accidental death puts drowning among the top five causes of death in South Africa.

The council’s Ria Laubscher put males and females under the age of four at the greatest risk of drowning. — Sapa