PHOENIXVILLE, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Officials are warning the public about recreational water safety after a woman accidentally drowned in the Schuylkill River over the Fourth of July weekend. They say shallow water levels make parts of the river unsafe for diving.
Phoenixville Fire Dept. Chief Eamon Brazunas said as weather temperatures increase, so do the calls for water rescues.
"So we regularly are on the Schuylkill, especially when the weather starts getting nice for water rescue related events, whether it's boating emergencies, kayaks flipping over, and unfortunately, people jumping off some of the overpasses into the water," he said. "So it's not an atypical response that you're gonna get, we get in the nicer weather."
Without exercising caution, Brazunas said, a fun day can easily turn tragic. This happened on July 4, when authorities say a woman tragically drowned after jumping off an abandoned trestle into the Schuylkill.
"You’re jumping from an elevated position 30-40 feet, you're gonna go down pretty far in the water so it's not going to take alot to hit the bottom," he said.
"You're not going to a pool, it's not really a controlled environment, you got all this debris and stuff underneath, especially after storms, there's all this stuff that's getting kicked up. In this instance, we didn't have a storm ... the river was low."
For those reasons, Brazunas cautioned, jumping off a bridge into the river is not safe. He advised people to have fun, but to also exercise water safety.
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"We want people to enjoy the recreation and enjoy the opportunities that we have, whether you're in Phoenixville or in the other areas to where the Schuylkill exists, but you try to do it as safely as you can. Use a personal flotation device, if you're using a jetski, you're in a kayak, canoe," he advised.
Brazunas also urged people to go in pairs or groups, to keep an eye on one another. And at the risk of sounding obvious...
"We just really highly discourage getting up on elevated platforms, old trestles and train train trestles abandoned or not, and jumping off," he said. "It's just very risky."