CALGARY – Officials are warning of just how dangerous the city’s waterways can be, after responding to two river rescues within minutes of each other.
The Calgary Fire Department’s Aquatics rescue team was on a routine patrol of the Bow River on Sunday night when they discovered two people clinging to a safety boom upstream of the Harvie Passage.
Crews were able to rescue the pair and bring them to shore uninjured.
Officials say if the boom had not been in place, both likely would have gone under the falls within the passage.
One of the people rescued wasn’t wearing a lifejacket at the time.
Just minutes later, the rescue team was called to reports of a rafter stranded on a bridge abutment at 10th Street NW.
When they arrived, they found a man who had been thrown from his raft and had climbed out of the river onto the abutment.
Firefighters lowered a life jacket to the man from the bridge above, as a dive team member swam out to help him.
He was rescued and taken to safety.
Fire crews are reminding rafters to wear life jackets at all times and to leave the river upstream of the Harvie Passage.
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