A 30-year-old man drowned in an accident in Hønefoss on Wednesday trying to save his ten-year-old son from drowning. None of them could swim.
They were part of a family of four from Syria and living in Hønefoss. The family were out on the river when the 10-year-old fell into the water. There are no swimming facilities on site as the river is wide.
“The father jumped in.
Neither of the two could swim,” Bent Rye, head of the investigation in Hønefoss police station district, told Ringerikes Blad.
Two men who witnessed the incident came running to the scene. One of them jumped into the water to help the boy. The other then helped both up on land.
Only after a few minutes did the rescue crews realize there was another person in the water. It was 49 minutes after the first message came about the accident that the boy’s father was found underwater by the fire department, reported the newspaper.
The man was flown to Ullevål hospital but he died.
The family has received emergency assistance from the municipality.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
I grew up in Rock Island Illinois on the upper Mississippi River – America’s Father of the Waters. Even fishermen and trappers experienced with the River died from time to time.
Rivers with their “undertows” (unseen subsurface currents) – even in smaller creeks – can be extremely treacherous and deadly.
In August 1969, I finally made it east over the mountains of Aristazabal Island off the Canadian Pacific coast, at the conclusion of my one-man survival adventure, but had to cross a not very large creek (I thought) to get up the (fjord) coast to my pickup point. I got about 1/3 of the way across and was just about swept out to sea (with my rifle and pack) by the fast and unexpectedly strong and deep current, when I realized that the log across the mouth of the creek was actually the edge of a log bridge! … and was able to make it back to the bank and instead just WALK across.
Well done, someone, on saving the boy.
A sad tragedy for him and his family.
The unusually big melt-off in Norway may make the rivers faster and deeper and more dangerous than usual.