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A 15-year-old boy drowned after falling off a boat in a reservoir pond in Taku, Saga Prefecture, on Sunday.
According to police, the boy and two high school friends said they found the boat near the lake and decided to have some fun at around 2 p.m., TBS reported. "We were rocking the boat back and forth when we all fell off," they told police.
Police identified the dead boy as Kai Nagamatsu. Police said he sank below the surface and was discovered nearly 30 minutes later and pronounced dead at the scene.
© Japan Today
11 Comments
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tmarie
A sad story but a pond? At 15? After all those swimming lessons here??
Nessie
Pond could mean jinko-ko, an artificial reservoir created by a dam. Alcohol could have been involved. Parents, it's an archipelago: Please teach your kids to swim.
Scnadal.Lova
Tragic, swimming lessons are needed.
bogva
This artificial excavated ponds (if it was something like this) are very dangerous! The death usually come not because you can't swim but because of difference in temperatures the hart stops. In natural lakes the bank are no so steep and there is convection while in artificial ponds layers are formed. When kid I was thought not to get even close to such places. RIP to the young guy - it's a tragedy.
LostinNagoya
RIP, poor boy. As an excellent swimmer and diver I can say that if you are under water and swallow water thru you nose by accident, it's very hard to regain control of buoyancy, and if you don't have help or grab something above water, you may end up drowning I had this experience once: I lost balance when I was standing on a rock in the middle of a shallow lake and I was terrified when I realized I was drowning and couldn't either buoy or try to dive upward. Thanks God a woman saw me under water and grabbed up by my hair. She saved me.
kickboard
Try swimming fully clothed. Or better yet, don't try.
Nessie
It's easy, unless you panic.
TSRnow
A lot of the elementary schools do have swimming lessons fully clothed (minus the shoes). I guess it didn't help. RIP poor boy.
tmarie
Try swimming fully clothed. Or better yet, don't try.
I have thanks. It's not all that hard if you are a decent swimmer. Red Cross swimming lessons makes students do this. Clearly Japan should adopt their methods of teaching swimming as most here can't swim a lick even after years of school swimming lessons and private lessons. So many deaths could be prevented with better quality instruction.
LostinNagoya
It is two distinct situations to enter water fully clothed in a drill, and falling accidentally fully clothed from a boat.
tmarie
It is which is why kids should have to do the first so they don't panick if the second happens.