Why Did A 13-Year-Old Wearing Life Vests Die In The Waters Off Wasaga Beach?
Posted July 25, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Police still aren’t sure why a 13-year-old Quebec boy died after falling off a personal watercraft at Wasaga Beach on Thursday. Christopher Carson was riding on a Wave Runner with two other older friends when they hit a wave and plunged into the rough water. The friends managed to drag him to shore, but it was too late. After repeated attempts by emergency crews to save his life, Carson was declared dead.
The case was initially being treated as a drowning, but investigators soon learned that all three men were wearing life jackets, adding more mystery to the tragic fatality.
There’s no indication that the boy’s life jacket malfunctioned, but experts warn that they do have a life-span and can become ineffective after becoming waterlogged.
Witnesses are still shaken.
“Someone was screaming and then there was C.P.R. being done,” recalled Crystal Bain. “And the ambulance got there and they were trying to do C.P.R. for a while. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t budging.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that before. I still keep thinking about it today,” adds Jane Bain.
John Young, who manages a rental shop in Wasaga, believes the conditions on Thursday were too choppy for riding.
“The way the water was yesterday was way too rough,” he said. “I was going to mention to them to get in because the three of them on the machine was too many. They just weren’t strong enough out there. The way the weather was yesterday, you have to be a strong swimmer…even with a life jacket on.”
Thursday’s death marks the second tragedy on Wasaga beach this month. Two weeks ago a 20-year-old from Brampton drowned when he fell off a rubber dinghy in deep water. He didn’t know how to swim.
The Canadian Lifesaving Society say about 140 people drown in Ontario every year.
