Youngster Dies in Fishing Lake
By Neil Mckay
Police fear more tragedies during heatwave
A teenager drowned yesterday after going swimming with friends in a County Durham lake. The youngster, 18, from Murton, near Seaham, County Durham, had been swimming with two friends at Watergate Lake near the former colliery village yesterday afternoon.
His two friends, both 17, called emergency services shortly after 12.20pm when he failed to surface at the isolated lake, which is surrounded by fields.
Police officers Terry Hill and Ian Sanderson from Seaham waded in, but couldn’t find the youngster in water which ranges in depth between 5ft and 15ft.
A Northumbria Police underwater search-and-rescue diving unit was alerted, and after searching for several hours they discovered a body at around 6.20pm.
As tearful friends and relatives of the teenager stood behind a police cordon, an ambulance was summonsed down a narrow country track leading to the lake to take away the body.
The youngster was pronounced dead by a paramedic on the lakeside.
The lake is 400 metres long and 200 metres wide and has an island in the middle.
Around the side are signs saying “Private, keep out” and “Danger, deep water”, but Sgt Ian Marshall of Durham Police, who was in charge of the operation, said: “In this hot weather the cool water looks very appealing, and youngsters will ignore the signs warning them to keep out.
“But beneath the surface there are reeds and fishing lines and waters like these are highly dangerous.
“We can only hope that people take notice of this tragedy, otherwise I fear repeats in the warm weather.”
Sgt Marshall said: “The depth of the water is also deceptive. It ranges from 5ft to 15ft and there can be sudden steep increases in the depth.”
Sgt Marshall said PCs Hill and Sanderson had arrived quickly on the scene, but had been unable to find the youngster, who had been swimming with his friends to and from the island, which lies about 50 metres from the shore. The man-made lake is used by anglers who pay to fish there, but people on the nearby Station Estate at Murton said youngsters did go swimming there.
Father-of-three David Robson, 42, said: “It is a tragedy, but there is not a lot for youngsters to do around here and you can hardly blame them for being drawn towards the lake in a heatwave like this.”
Easington District Council leader Alan Napier, whose Murton West ward includes Watergate Lake, said: “What has happened is very sad, the death of an 18-year-old is a shocking tragedy for the village.
“I didn’t know that youngsters swam in the lake. To my knowledge it was used for fishing, but you can see the attraction in this hot weather. Unfortunately the consequences have been dreadful.”
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