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Enter a key word to search for posts:She’s fallen in the water…..
Posted on: Sunday May 5, 2019 at: 2:38 pm
..that’s one for the Goon Show fans amongst us.
Seriously though, a dangerous incident occured on May Bank Holiday Saturday. We were approaching Pastures Lock on the Erewash Canal, mid afternoon, when I spotted a lady fall in the water, right by the lock. She was one of a party of three senior citizens who were walking the towpath. It turned out she had been trying to pick a plastic bag out of the water (very helpful) and had tried to stand on a patch of what she thought was grass, but was actually just weed on top of the water. So, in she went. Luckily, no-one was operating the lock at the time as she could easily have been sucked under into a sluice.
A concerned huddle
Fortunately, there was a younger guy also walking along the towpath with his partner and he ran up to help. Just as well, as we were only just coasting into the landing stage and could not have got to her for another minute or two. He was able to haul her back onto the path.
Now, of course, the problem was that on top of possible shock, she was soaked through and could not have carried on walking in that condition. She would very quickly have been suffering from hypothermia as there was a cold wind blowing.
So, we invited them all onboard, lent her some dry clothes to wear and gave them tea and coffee while we put her clothes (and boots) into our tumble dryer. A rather wet floor was soon dried up and over the space of an hour or so, she warmed up and recovered from the trauma. We were able to carry on down the canal while her clothes continued to dry, and offered to take them all the way to Trent Lock (at the bottom of the canal) where their car was. However, they insisted they wanted to continue walking. Once she was able to put on her own clothes again, we set them ashore and they went on their way.
We leap-frogged on down the canal after that, with them overtaking us at locks, and us overtaking them on the journey in between. Last seen, they passed us as we moored up for the night at Trent Lock and we waved goodbye to them as they headed off to find their car.
Never a dull moment eh?
Truly there is no limit to the adventurous life aboard…You can beat the t,v celebrities Pru nella scales etc,,,,,hope your washer/drier recovered,,,perhaps the canal water was not gtoo fragrant……wet here today..hope you are havong better luck…xxxx