'It was just too late': Witness says nobody could save father who drowned at Alberta lake
Man drowned Wednesday after rescuing son, 9, in Wizard Lake
A 49-year-old man drowned Wednesday evening after saving his nine-year-old son at a lake in Leduc County.
Leduc RCMP were called to Wizard Lake, about 68 kilometres south of Edmonton, around 7:20 p.m. for a drowning at Jubilee Park, the lake's day-use area.
Sisters Cassie Beamer and Mandy Crawford were at the beach cooling off when they heard screams coming from the water.
"We just shied it off for a couple of seconds. But then I had the instinct that ... kids don't just scream like that for no reason," said Beamer.
"I just observed to see if it was a game or not. And I could see the man's hands going up and down out of the water."
Beamer was watching from the beach when she saw the man was struggling to get to the surface.
"Within seconds, his hands went down for the last time. Within 20 seconds, Mandy was in the water, my husband was in the water and other males were in the water trying to dive down to find him in that specific area.
"It was just too late."
Crawford and a handful of other beachgoers stayed in the water for two hours looking for the man's body.
But visibility underwater was poor and the area where the man went missing was quite deep, Crawford said.
"There were spots where you couldn't even touch. So it was really hard to try to see where he might have been," she said.
"But we just kept trying as long as we could."
On shore, Beamer was on the phone with 911 and waited for emergency crews to arrive.
She said a woman who was sitting in the nearby grass approached her, saying her husband was in the water with the kids.
"She just fell on the beach, immediately in shock and started crying. She was just watching us trying our best to try to find him at that point."
The beachgoers who were looking for the man were called out of the water at around 9:30 p.m.
The man's body was recovered by RCMP divers from the lake Thursday.
Increase in drownings: officials
Experts say there have been more drownings this summer in Alberta compared to last year.
Staff with the Lifesaving Society of Alberta and Northwest Territories said there have been 16 media-reported fatal drownings, eight non-fatal drownings and three unknown but suspected as fatal.
The number of fatal drownings this year is already triple the five fatal drownings reported by the same time last year, said the society's CEO, Kelly Carter.
"I would say it's an alarming summer this year," Carter said.
He said the recent heat wave and some recreation centres and outdoor pools not operating at full capacity yet could be prompting people to visit lakes to cool down.
"With more people going outside accessing those natural bodies of water, there's a much greater risk because the environment can change quickly," Carter said.
"It's not what people are used to when we look at where people traditionally would be swimming."
Crawford and Beamer recalled seeing signs at Wizard Lake mentioning the deep water. But they wish they could have helped save the man.
"I'm grateful that we were able to save the kids ... Had we waited another 20 seconds, they all would have been gone," said Beamer.
"That's how fast and quick things happened."
Corrections
- RCMP initially reported the child in distress to be three years old but later issued a corrected age of nine. This article has been updated accordingly.Jul 15, 2021 5:36 PM MT