KANANASKIS COUNTRY – Kananaskis rescuers have been hopping busy over the past week, including with recovery of a drowning victim at Seebe and plucking a stranded scrambler from the side of a cliff face near Highwood Pass.
Public safety specialists say they recovered the body of a 29-year-old man from Victoria, B.C., who had drowned by the bridge across the Kananaskis River near Seebe on Saturday (Aug. 20) after he was reported missing the day before.
“It wasn’t at the cliff jumping spot. It was at a different place right next to the bridge that goes across the Kananaskis River there,” said Jeremy Mackenzie, a public safety specialist with Kananaskis Country.
“We spent one evening searching by ground and air, and then the next morning we started searching by ground and boat, and unfortunately, found him deceased under the water.”
On Aug. 19 at 3:10 p.m., Cochrane and Morley RCMP responded to a report that the man, who was travelling from Victoria to Calgary and reported camping in the area near the Seebe Dam, was overdue.
RCMP say officers and the Police Dog Services, along with Kananaskis Country Public Safety, began searching the area that afternoon and into the evening, including by helicopter, but could not find the missing man.
Cpl. Gina Slaney, media relations officer for K Division, said the missing man was found deceased in the water at approximately 9:30 a.m. the following day.
“The death is not deemed to be suspicious,” Slaney said in a news release.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of the deceased.”
This was one of about 20 call-outs for Kananaskis Country Public Safety over the past week, with 10 of those calls occurring last Thursday (Aug. 18), including horse riding accidents, mountain bike crashes, and stranded paddlers.
One of the more serious incidents that day involved a man who was lucky to escape with his life after falling down a slab near the ridge line of Storm Mountain, located off Highway 40 southwest of Highwood Pass in K-Country.
Rescuers, who slung the person to safety via helicopter, say he thankfully stopped on the scree-covered ledge before likely plummeting to his death.
“I think he probably fell around 100 metres, and then he probably could have gone another 1,000 down the bottom of the mountain,” said Mackenzie.
“They managed to stop their fall before going the full distance. There were no injuries, but they were stranded where they were.”
Rescuers say people shouldn’t go exploring a shorter way down unless they know the route works.
“It’s always best to go back the way you came unless you have done lots of research on your route and you know it works,” said Mackenzie.
That same day, Canmore’s fire department was also called out to multiple incidents, including a serious medical call for a crash at the Canmore Nordic Centre that sent a mountain biker to hospital.
Canmore Fire-Rescue also extinguished a vehicle fire by the east gate of Banff National Park that day, opened a car door when a sneaky toddler had locked himself into and rescued two people who capsized their raft on the river.
“With what we’re seeing, take your time to educate yourself on whatever sport you’re doing and have a plan,” said Canmore Fire Chief Lance Bushie.
Mackenzie said the river rescues over the past week-and-a-half, one of which involved at least 16 people in different rafts, involved inexperienced paddlers using inappropriate boats.
“They’re all related to people that are on water with inappropriate boats, kind of the Canadian Tire-type rafts… you don’t want to be using a cheap lightweight raft that you buy at a corner store,” he said.
“They’re either not being fully equipped or fully aware of what they’re up to and that’s caused some grief.”
Scouting the river ahead of time is also vitally important given there are many hazards such as log jams and sweepers – which is a fallen tree that is partially or completely blocking passage on the river.
The danger is being swept into the maze of branches by the current and becoming trapped.
“There’s trees in water or just above the surface of water and the channels are quite braided,” said Mackenzie.
“People are getting into channels that may be a dead end, or there’s a tree somewhat in middle and they don’t know how to navigate around them.”
