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5-year-old boy drowns while rafting in Iwate

17 Comments

A 5-year-old boy drowned after he fell off a raft and was swept downstream in the Toyosawa River in Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture, on Monday.

According to police, the boy had gone to the river with 23 other children and five teachers from a preschool. Sankei Shimbun reported that at about 11 a.m., the boy was on a raft with nine other children and a teacher when he fell into the river. He was swept 50 meters downstream.

A teacher who was on the raft told police he didn't notice that the boy had fallen off until they reached the riverbank.

When rescue workers pulled the boy out about 40 minutes later, he was in a state of cardio-respiratory arrest, police said. He was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead an hour later.

Police said the children were playing on rafts made of wood and tires.

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17 Comments
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Absolute parent's nightmare! Its stuff like this that make me not trust anyone with my kid.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Should have lifejackets.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Too young to do some extreme activities.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This is horrible! Can't imagine the pain the parents are going through now! RIP little boy!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

"the children were playing on rafts made of wood and tires" doesn't spell extreme. I wonder if they made the rafts themselves, with the teachers. A raft company would likely have been a lot more careful.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

From this brief we are to believe 10 kinder kids on a raft with 1 teacher.

If so then there are zero excuses.

Gross negligence resulting in death.

Lifejackets??? - we don't know!

So sad.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The article again does not give enough information. Life jackets, CPR administered? Precautions taken by the school, etc.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

@Jack Stern

The river was probably fairly calm, so the boy most likely fell into the water and drowned. If he had a life jacket on, it would have kept him afloat and kept his head above water. The only time when life jackets might be useless is if the river was very fast moving and had a lot of rocks. I doubt that any camp or school in their right mind would allow 5 year olds to ride down rivers like that. That would extremely irresponsible.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

They said on the news that they didn't know he'd fallen off till they reached shore, and he wasn't on the raft, and that the kids were not wearing any kind of floats or life jackets. Sounds like it was poorly managed all around.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

What the hell are they doing playing with preschool children in a river. I don't care if they were wearing life jackets or had plenty of supervision, that is extremely irresponsible. For children of that age anything other than a blow up or public pool is unnecessary. I hope whoever thought that was an ok idea loses their job.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

A teacher who was on the raft told police he didn’t notice that the boy had fallen off until they reached the riverbank.

Unmitigated cretin.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

A teacher who was on the raft told police he didn’t notice that the boy had fallen off until they reached the riverbank.

He may hve been too busy with his "i-phone"...

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The whole story has come out today. ALL the kids fell into the water, the rafts all tipped over. All the kids but one managed to grab onto a raft or a teacher, his hand may have slipped. Poor kids! They clambered back on, returned to the river bank and realized that one boy was missing.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Himajin

That's horrible!! I would be LIVID if I were any one of those kids' parent let alone the kid that died. That is plain incompetence at its WORST, and the school deserves to be shut down for good, and its operators jailed for negligence.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It is horrible!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Every parent's worst nightmare, I really feel for the parents and RIP little boy. I don't think I'll ever consent to my son going on any trip... :(

0 ( +0 / -0 )

That's just absolutely terrible, such a young boy too. I'm not sure if I could live knowing that I let a child die just because I wasn't paying enough attention. My full sympathy goes out to the boys family, especially his parents.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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