Swim danger warning after reservoir rescue

Date published: 06 July 2009

A man who ignored no-swimming signs at Dovestone reservoir had to be rescued by fire crews when he got into difficulty.

Fire-fighters scrambled the fire rescue boat from Eccles to save the 27-year-old man, who was stranded on a jetty 150yd from the shore.

The man had decided to take a dip at around 6.30pm on Saturday, but his friends on the shore had to call the fire bridge when he got cramp and realised he couldn’t make it back to safety.

Crews from Mossley, Eccles and Oldham used a hansa board (which looks like a flat canoe) to bring the shivering swimmer back to shore, before he was warmed up in an ambulance and allowed to go home.

But with the temperatures in the reservoir dipping as low as 2 degrees C in places, fire-fighters warned that the summertime dip could have ended in tragedy.

Stockport-based crew manager Don Roberts, who attended the rescue with the Mossley crew, said: “If this man had begun to feel cramp while he was on the way to the jetty or on his way back, it could have been a totally different story.

“If you get cramp, your arms and legs, everything which is holding you afloat, simply stop operating.

“Luckily for this man, he started to feel the effects of cramp once he had reached a place of relative safety.”

And Nathan Poulton, the rear commodore at the Dovestone Sailing Club warned that once people get into the water, it can be a matter of minutes before they are in serious trouble.

“Dovestone is 50ft deep in some places and so while the temperature might feel warm on the surface, just a few inches below that it gets much colder, because it’s too deep to get warm,” he said.

“I’m not aware of us ever having had to use one of our rescue boats to save a swimmer, but every single week we see at least half a dozen people, not all of whom are teenagers, swimming in the water.

“We always advise them how dangerous it is, but 90 per cent of them simply ignore us and think we are just trying to spoil their fun.

“Even if a jetty is just five minutes swim from the shore, once your body has started cramping the journey back till take much longer and you might get stuck.”

And the swimmer was not the only one taking risks in the heat, with police confirming that just hours before the man was plucked to safety, they had to warn a teenager who had been jumping from rocks into the water, a practice known as tombstoning.

Mr Poulton is now calling for compulsory awareness courses for anyone who is caught tombstoning or swimming in the reservoir.

He said: “We’ve had to pick lots of people out of the water who have jumped in from cliffs.

“Broken legs, a shattered pelvis and shattered ankles are just some of the injuries you can end up with and if you’re unlucky, the injuries can reach your spine and leave you paralysed.

“Many of them jump off a cliff which has a ledge coming out under the water, which they simply wouldn’t know was there.

“You never know what’s under the water. A lot of them approach it with a sense of bravado, but maybe sending them on a course will help them realise just how dangerous it can be.”