VISALIA (KMJ) — With high temperatures continuing into the weekend, rivers could be a tempting place to try to cool off.
As tempting as large pools of water can be as the sun’s heat continues to bear down on us, they can be dangerous too.
Tulare County Sheriff’s Department states they had three separate incidents at the Kern River in the space of three days.
“We had six deputies up there, and they’d received a call of some individuals that had become stranded in the Kern River while kayaking”, says Captain Larry Micari.
“We were able to rescue all these parties, then we actually went downstream to find a place to exit the river and we found ten people that a raft had gotten wedged in the middle of the river that we had to rescue”.
Both those recovery operations took place on May 29th, and Captain Micari adds that the ten people in the raft were all wearing floatation devices which actually kept them alive in those dangerous conditions.
The third incident took place on Tuesday 31st May, when a woman was trying to cross the river in rising water and got stuck. She too was saved.
Tulare County Sheriff’s Department are now trying to encourage visitors to take precautions when trying out the valley’s rivers.
“The Kern River…the water’s moving real fast, it’s rising….we get people who drown every year and its very very unfortunate”.
His advice is – even if it looks OK, it may not be.
“People need to realize that the water is dangerous and they need to really be safe. They need to go to an area they know is safe and just be careful”.
Hear the report from KMJ’s Dominic McAndrew as it aired:
