Weekend drowning at Manitoba quarry echoes 2019 fatality
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/07/2021 (1565 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
On Sunday, the body of a four-year-old boy was pulled from the water of a former gravel pit just north of Petersfield, after he was reported missing earlier in the day.
“It’s just a sad situation on the outcome,” Clandeboye Fire Department Chief Ed Paskaruk said Monday. “Our hearts go out to the family involved.”
The boy was reported missing to the local fire department at approximately 5 p.m. The Hutterian Emergency Aquatic Response Team (HEART), Matlock Fire Department, RCMP, and STARS Air Ambulance were also at the scene on the property of the Netley Hutterite Colony.

Paskaruk said the teams searched on foot and by Zodiac boat. The boy’s body was located in 13-feet-deep water just before 7:30 p.m.
Selkirk RCMP continue to investigate.
The child and his family, from the Rural Municipality of Dufferin, were visiting friends and family at the colony, said Manuel Maendel, HEART co-captain.
Gravel pits are common swimming areas for children near such colonies, Maendel said, adding they usually are well-supervised.
Two years ago, however, a 35-year-old Netley member drowned at the same site.
The non-swimmer who lived with a mental disability was found dead in the rock quarry, located some 50 kilometres north of Winnipeg, in June 2019, after an extensive search involving multiple rescue organizations.
Just like the incident two years ago, the Clandeboye Fire Department is unclear as to how the incident happened, and Maendel said the situation is “eerily similar.”
Both victims were either non-swimmers or weak swimmers, and both were not wearing lifejackets while swimming among groups of people at the former quarry.
After the drowning two years ago, Maendel said the colony did take steps to avoid a repeat incident, including rules surrounding constant supervision and children wearing lifejackets. The recent victim and his family were visitors, however, and did not have lifejackets.
Both incidences also occurred as a result of losing supervision of the swimmers.
“From our perspective, all drownings are preventable, so we need to take our lesson from that,” Maendel said, speculating the colony will further tighten its local rules on water safety.
Even though quarries are common swimming areas, they have “inherent dangers” due to water visibility, said Maendel.
Compared to a typical swimming pool, where a supervisor would be able to see a swimmer at the bottom of the pool, the difficulty of locating a swimmer in a quarry largely increases because of a visibility near zero, he said. That difficulty only increases with any steep drop in depth which is undetectable over the water line.
Lifesaving Society Manitoba water smart co-ordinator Christopher Love acknowledged the history of incidents in quarries, and emphasized the importance of weak and non-swimmers wearing lifejackets in the water.
In addition, he also advised Monday swimmers never go in alone, never swim intoxicated, all children are actively supervised by an adult (children under seven within arm’s reach), and to always choose a supervised location.
gillian.brown@freepress.mb.ca