Nine-year-old boy drowns at Britannia Beach

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Ottawa police say a nine-year-old boy drowned at Britannia Beach on Monday afternoon, days before the city’s lifeguards are scheduled to begin patrolling the waters.

Police said Tuesday the boy was found unresponsive in the water around 3:50 p.m. the previous day. Bystanders and police performed CPR until paramedics arrived and took over, police said, but the boy was declared dead at the hospital.

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Britannia Beach is one of three beaches staffed by city lifeguards, but only from June 15 until Aug. 25.

Sean Duffy, vice-president of management training at Lifesaving Society Ontario and a representative of the Ottawa Drowning Prevention Coalition, said 70 per cent of drownings in Ontario occur in the summer, and most happen in unsupervised waters.

“When it comes to open water, the safest place to swim is near a lifeguard,” he said in an interview. “Less than one per cent of fatal drownings happen in a lifeguard-supervised setting.

“We know when the weather gets warmer, people get into the water to cool off and have fun, and that’s a great thing,” Duffy said. “But we want people to do it safely.”

This newspaper asked the City of Ottawa if it is considering adjusting work start dates for lifeguards in order to have supervised swimming earlier in the summer. Tracey McGarry, the city’s director of complexes, aquatics and specialty services, said the majority of the city lifeguards at beaches and outdoor pools are students participating in the city’s summer employment program.

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“Due to the school year schedule and staff availability for pre-season training and work, the programming hours at outdoor pools and beaches are scheduled within a timeframe that the majority of lifeguards are available to work,” McGarry said via email. “During May and June, indoor pools are available for public and lane swims, and over 160 splash pads are activated for the summer by the Victoria Day weekend. As well, 53 wading pools begin operations in late June.”

Lifeguards will be on duty at city beaches daily beginning mid-June from noon to 7 p.m., and “we strongly recommend that residents swim in designated swimming areas during supervised hours,” McGarry said.

She added the city is not facing issues with staffing levels and is able to staff lifeguards at its indoor pools, outdoor pools and beaches during their scheduled operating hours.

City councillor Theresa Kavanagh, whose Bay ward includes Britannia Beach, said she “understands the desire” for lifeguards to be stationed at beaches earlier in the season, especially as Ottawa’s summers get longer and warmer.

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“It’s the beginning of June, and it’s already really hot,” she said in an interview. “We have to talk about climate change, notice there’s a huge difference between now and even 10 years ago, when going in the water at the beginning of June just didn’t seem like a good idea. Now it’s necessary. You’re hot and want to cool off.”

But, she said, she worries about finding enough lifeguards to staff beaches for a longer period.

“It’s a budget item, but even if we did have a budget, can we find them?” She said. “There’s a huge shortage, as of now, with what we’re asking for.”

She said she recently attended a city-run pool that closed abruptly, as they were short lifeguards.

“That’s something you can do at the pool, shut the door, but you can’t do it at the beach.”

Kavanagh said she didn’t have specific details of Monday afternoon’s drowning, but said the “general rule of thumb is, stay close to your kids in the water, keep an eye on them.”

Basic swimming lessons, she said, are also important, as “the more they know how to handle themselves in water, the better.”

Duffy noted most bodies of water in Ontario aren’t supervised, and “layers of protection” are important to prevent drownings. That includes swimming lessons, not swimming alone, life jackets and parents keeping their children within arm’s reach — not simply supervising from shore.

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“Drowning is preventable with the right tools and resources,” he said.

Ottawa police are asking anyone present at the beach when the drowning occurred Monday who had any involvement and has not yet spoken to police to contact the West Criminal Investigations Section at 613-236-1222, extension 2666.

The drowning was the second such incident in the past seven days. 

On May 28, rescue crews responded to a distress call at the beach. After being rushed to hospital, a man who had been submerged was pronounced dead. Two men were attempting to retrieve a boat that was connected to the shore with a rope. When emergency crews arrived that morning, one man was on shore and another man was underwater, tied up in the rope, according to Ottawa Fire Services public information officer Nick DeFazio.

Last summer, two people drowned at the same beach.

With files from Postmedia staff

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