Those familiar with the true power of water say it’s important to use caution when enjoying time on a river, because it doesn’t take long for a joyful day to turn tragic.
In July 2015, a 20-year-old University of Massachusetts-Lowell student drowned in the Deerfield River while swimming with friends near a popular rope swing roughly a quarter-mile upstream from the Stillwater Bridge on Stillwater Road. In 2010, a 53-year-old Greenfield man drowned in the Green River after flipping the kayak he was paddling.
Andrea Donlon, a river steward with the Connecticut River Watershed Council, said rivers are dynamic systems and their flows go up and down according to recent rainfall or hydropower operations.
“So people should really know how to swim,” she said in her office on Bank Row in Greenfield. “It sounds surprising, but there are people who go tubing on the Deerfield River and they don’t even know how to swim and they separate from their tube and they don’t have a life jacket.”
Roughly 68 miles of the 410-mile Connecticut River run through Massachusetts. The river is popular for fishermen and recreational swimmers.
Zoar Outdoor in Charlemont is known for offering a variety of sporting activities, including paddles sports like whitewater rafting on the Deerfield River.
Zoar President Bruce Lessels, like Donlon, stressed the importance of life jackets.
“Even for a good swimmer, swimming in moving water or whitewater is much more difficult than people realize until (they) do it,” Lessels said. “Swimming without a life jacket is not only difficult, but also dangerous.”
He said the rule of thumb for anyone not in the safety of a boat or other watercraft is to keep their feet off the bottom of the river. Trying to stand up, he said, often leads to foot entrapment, which can result in drowning.
Lessels suggests the “defensive swimming position,” which he described as being on your back, with your feet pointed downstream and above the water so you can see your toes. This, he said, will give you visibility and allow you to push away potentially dangerous objects in the water.
Donlon said the United States Geological Survey maintains streamflow conditions. The information can be found by visiting:
waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/rt and choosing a particular state.
You can reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 258. On Twitter: @DomenicPoli