Tragically, drownings occur each year in the B.C. Interior.
Data from the Life Saving Society show, on average, the Okanagan and Shuswap record seven drowning deaths annually.
However, visitors to some Shuswap beaches will soon have another resource on hand if someone gets into trouble in the water.
The local Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue station is installing ten life ring stations around the region.
The hope is the floatation devices will make it easier for bystanders to provide aid before tragedy strikes.
“Kids might be swimming and if somebody got in trouble, rather than somebody going in to rescue them, and the individual in trouble pulling you down and underwater, we would throw them a life ring. It’s got a long lanyard on it, so we could pull the individual back in,” said Doug Pearce, deputy station leader of the Shuswap Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue station.
Two of the life ring stations have already been set up at a public beach in Sicamous.
Back in 2018, three teens had to be rescued in the area.
“They went for a swim, they didn’t realize there was a current down there and they actually started moving away, they tried to swim back and couldn’t. We actually got called out to bring those kids back in…In that event, that life ring could have helped those young men,” Pat Gau, a coxswain with the marine search and rescue group, said.
Two more of the stations are earmarked for Enderby parks popular with people floating the Shuswap river.
In Enderby, the search and rescue group will also be adding two stations where people can borrow kids’ life jackets.
More than a dozen similar life jacket kiosks are already operating in the Shuswap.
“We don’t want there to be any excuses that people aren’t safe on the water or that a young person could be in any danger,” Pearce said.
The group wants to see the life rings widely available near the water and says strong demand means they’ll likely need to make more.