Police, volunteers search Lake Erie for missing Port Stanley swimmer

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PORT STANLEY – Police launched an extensive search through Lake Erie around this popular beach town after a swimmer entered the water on Sunday afternoon and didn’t resurface.

It was about 2:30 p.m. when the main beach – typically filled with huge crowds on sunny summer weekends – was cleared. Six Ontario Provincial Police cruisers, two ambulances and two fire engines descended on the scene while a police drone and helicopter flew overhead. They were searching the water with volunteers.

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“A swimmer entered the water and did not resurface,” police said in a statement issued at about 4:30 p.m. on Sunday. “An extensive search is ongoing.”

CTV London is reporting the missing swimmer was a 14-year-old and published images of a volunteer human chain well out into Lake Erie as the effort continued Sunday evening.

As the search continued, beachgoers expressed shock and sadness on social media. “Avoid the beach unless (you’re) able to help” search for the swimmer, one person wrote.

Drownings are rare at Port Stanley but not unheard of.

In July 2016, 18-year-old Ingersoll native William Johnston drowned, though lifeguards managed to save a woman he was with at the beach. “It was so hard getting through the undertow,” a volunteer searcher said at the time.

His drowning was the first at the main beach since August 2004, when eight-year-old Mitchell Temple-Medhurst went under during a supervised outing with other children from Madame Vanier Children’s Services in London.

In June 1998, three young men died in separate incidents when they were swept off the Port Stanley pier. The deaths prompted then-owner Transport Canada to close pedestrian access to the pier, access that was only restored in 2015 after extensive renovations.

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In a 2016 report, the Lifesaving Society compiled statistics of “unintentional water-related deaths” in Canada and found the lowest rate was among youths age five to 14. Kids age five and younger suffered the second-lowest rate of water deaths.

“Drowning prevention education efforts directed at parents with young children appear to be having an impact,” the report stated.

The highest rate was among people age 20 to 34 and those older than 65, the report stated, noting more than 80 per cent of drowning victims are males. According to the report, drownings peak in July and August nationwide and more than half happen on weekends.

Three-quarters of Canadian drownings during the study’s period happened in natural bodies of water.

jmoulton@postmedia.com

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