Wear your life-jacket, Lifesaving Society urges
Life-jackets, not swimming skills, to blame in many drownings
It is Safe Boating Awareness Week, and water safety experts in Quebec are reminding people that most drownings on boat outings are preventable.
Quebec's Lifesaving Society is using the week to raise awareness about the importance of life-jackets. They say it is the absence of a life-jacket, not swimming skills, that is often at issue in boating accidents.
"When we ask the relative of the victims, 'Do you know if the victim was a good swimmer?' The answer is always 'yes,'" said Raynald Hawkins, executive director of the Lifesaving Society.
More than 40 percent of last year's victims of boating-related drownings had a life-jacket on board, but were not wearing it, he said.
Hawkins also cautioned boaters about the dangers of alcohol use.
"When you [have] a beer, that's the equivalence of three beers on the land," he said. "[That is] because of the waves, because of the sun, because of the winds, because of the dehydration."
Between 2011 and 2015, 87 people drowned in Quebec after getting on board some form of water transportation.