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Family rescued after flipping tube on Penticton channel

Two back-to-back marine rescues Tuesday kept Penticton crews busy
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Back-to-back marine rescue incidents on the Penticton channel Tuesday kept rescue crews busy. (Phil McLachlan - Western News - File)

A family rescued from the Penticton Channel after their tube flipped swears they will never do it again.

The group forfeited their tube to rescue personnel after being rescued from the fast-moving channel on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 14.

While tubing down the channel in their group flotation device, it flipped, putting all of them into the water.

According to Penticton Fire Department, who responded to the scene, none of the family members knew how to swim and no one was wearing a life jacket.

READ MORE: Four people rescued after floating past Penticton’s Skaha Bridge

One person and a baby managed to get back onto the tube, however the other two did not. Despite this, they all managed to get to the edge of the channel and hang on to the grass until rescue crews could pull them up.

What could have been a much worse situation ended up with just one individual suffering a minor medical issue. One individual was transported to a nearby ambulance.

“There was not a lot to it in the end, but… the people basically told our crews that, we’re not doing this again, we don’t want the tube, you can keep it. So they ended up discarding it,” said Penticton Fire Department deputy chief Chris Forster.

“They had a hard lesson learned.”

This was the second incident of the evening. The first happening just an hour before at 3:19 p.m.

A man on his tube floated past the exit point, travelling past the Skaha Bridge and out into the lake. Shouting for help, a nearby bystander took the man back to shore. He sustained no injuries.

“Once again we always suggest life jackets, and especially if you’re unable to swim, that should be an automatic,” said Forster.

The channel remains at a high level, and is moving quickly.

@PentictonNews
editor@pentictonwesternnews.com

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Phil McLachlan

About the Author: Phil McLachlan

Phil McLachlan is the editor at the Penticton Western News. He served as the reporter, and eventually editor of The Free Press newspaper in Fernie.
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