Expert believes rip current contributed to drowning of man in Port Burwell, Ont.
The recent drowning of a father in Port Burwell, Ont. has underscored the urgent need for public awareness around the dangers the Great Lakes pose.
'My entire life, I've always been told undertow was a concern and we're finding now that rip currents are more of a concern,' says Nate MacIntyre, 43, a lifeguard with more than 18 years experience.
MacIntyre was in Port Burwell hours after the drowning, helping police and fire fighters try to understand where they could find the body of Randy Lavigne.
He believes saw many areas of rip currents which likely contributed to claiming the life of the Woodstock father.
'Rip current is a focused current of water that's pulling swimmers far offshore and far away from shore where they're left in deeper water,' said MacIntyre.
062425
A police boat goes through the choppy water in Port Burwell, Ont. hours after a man went missing in Lake Erie. (Source: Brent Lale/CTV London) Lifeguard Nate MacIntyre is hope to raise awareness about his RIP Current Information Project. (Brent Lale/CTV News London)
'Often people struggle. They want to swim right back to shore immediately, where they know it's safe and they're swimming against the current. Some of the best advice could be counterintuitive, which is relax, flip, float, follow, flip onto your back, float, conserve your energy. You're going to need your energy. Allow the current just to take you.'
Due to strong currents, and a recent drowning, the City of Windsor closed Sandpoint Beach.
062425
A police boat goes through the choppy water in Port Burwell, Ont. hours after a man went missing in Lake Erie. (Brent Lale/CTV News London)
MacIntyre believes society is well past the point where the public needs education and clarification of terminology.
'Out with the old and in with the science evidence-based education,' he says.
'We can't keep going with undertow here or riptide there. We don't have tides on the Great Lakes, and undertow isn't really causing the problems. But rip currents are a real concern that are focused currents of water carrying people and debris and sediment offshore and leaving you in deeper water.'
Tuesday morning he made a delegation to Elgin County Council about the RIP Current Information Project.
'We started the RIP Current Information Project to help educate the public and educate governments about what's happening,' said MacIntyre.
'We're going to try to establish the campaign here in Elgin County and I had a really great support from all of the councillors and the Warden about amplifying the message and getting the word out to the public this year.'
062425
Nate MacIntyre spoke to Elgin County Council on Tuesday June 24, 2025 about the Rip Current Information Project. (Brent Lale/CTV News London)
The Lifesaving Society of Ontario estimates for every fatal drowning, there are 4-5 non-fatal drownings. Those are just the ones that are reported.
'It's one of those things that everybody in the community feels it,' says Briar McCaw of the Elgin County Drowning Prevention Coalition (ECDPC).
'It stems from people who have previously lost children or family members to drowning, to people who work in emergency services and hospitals, businesses. It's not just we're losing a life, we're taking mental, social, emotional, even financial tolls and bringing these things in. Anything we can do to save a life we should take advantage of.'
The ECDPC has been working with MacIntyre to push education.
'Whether you're coming to visit the beach for the day, how can you best learn the conditions, how to protect yourself, but also how can we collaborate with local community services?' says McCaw.
'The RIP Current Information Project did a great presentation to some of the fire departments, educating them about the dangers about the science. It's been really incredible to kind of join this collective knowledge together. How can we understand it all, collaborate towards the same goal of having to reduce and prevent drownings in our region?'
Later this summer, MacIntyre will paddle from Port Stanley to Port Burwell. The 35 km challenge hopes to raise further awareness about Great Lake RIP Currents.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
7 hours ago
- CTV News
Apartment building fire leaves residents displaced in Goderich
Damage seen from an apartment fire in Goderich, Ont. on Aug. 1, 2025. (Source: Phil Main) Damage from an apartment building fire in Goderich Friday night has left residents displaced. Emergency responders said around 11:20 p.m., they responded to the incident on Nelson Street. As of 2 a.m. Saturday, firefighters were still on scene. Residents and the public are asked to stay away from the area. Residents were evacuated on Brock Street and Nelson Street East because of the blaze. A warming centre was opened at the Knights of Columbus building. Goderich apartment fire Damage seen from an apartment fire in Goderich, Ont. on Aug. 1, 2025. (Source: Phil Main) No injuries have been reported. Nelson Street is closed between Cambria Road North and Albert Street. In a news release, Goderich Mayor Trevor Bazinet said: 'We are relieved to report that no injuries have been sustained from this incident. The well-being of our community members remains our top priority, and we are thankful for the quick response of our emergency services that made this possible.' For those wanting to support affected residents, Bazinet said gift card donations can be made instead of food items. 'Gift cards for groceries and essentials can provide affected families the flexibility to meet their specific needs during this difficult time,' he said. 'Gift cards may be dropped off to Town Hall, 57 West Street, this Tuesday (Aug. 5) to Friday (Aug. 8), 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.'
CBC
10 hours ago
- CBC
Clean up discarded fishing line, conservation group says, after 3 cygnets died after becoming tangled
Watching a trumpeter swan cygnet die was not on Louisa Lamberink-van Wijk's list of things to see during her birthday this year. Lamberink-van Wijk, who is the vice president of the Halton Hills Turtle Guardians, was having her birthday dinner around 8 p.m. on Tuesday when she saw a post in a local Facebook group about trumpeter swan cygnets all tangled up in a fishing line. She then received a call from Peter Duncanson, the president of the same organization, about the cygnets. She rushed over to help, but it was already too late. "Two were obviously dead," she said. "The one that was alive was swimming around, dragging the other two along with him as [best] as he could because… that's heavy for a young swan to do that." With some help from Duncanson and other volunteers, Lamberink-van Wijk was able to gently untangle the third cygnet. She took it home hoping to save its life and get it to a rehabilitation facility, but the young swan also died a few hours later. Discarded fishing line, lead sinkers an issue Trumpeter swans seemingly vanished from the Ontario landscape in the 1800s, until dedicated efforts were made to bring them back and monitor their numbers in the 1990s and early 2000s. Today, trumpeter swans are listed as "not at risk" in the Species at Risk Act's animal registry, thanks to the efforts of groups like the Trumpeter Swan Conservation of Ontario. Nevertheless, Laurel Ironside, a licensed bird bander at the Trumpeter Swan Conservation Ontario, expressed concern about the fact that they see trumpeter swans getting caught on discarded fishing lines on a weekly basis. "We don't want to lay blame [on anyone]," she said. "There's good anglers and there's bad anglers." Ironside said most of their swan rescues are caused by discarded fishing lines and lead sinkers. Ironside said lead sinkers affect not just many of the trumpeter swans that they rescue, but also other waterfowls. On Prince Edward Island, a study from the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown found that lead sinkers and ammunition caused nine per cent of deaths among Maritime bald eagles. "It's a frustrating thing because we've educated the public for years already," Lamberink-van Wijk said. "It's not something, 'Oh, that will never happen to me.' It definitely does happen." 'I'm very disappointed' While the cygnets were found in Halton region, Lamberink-van Wijk's frustration is something shared by Paul Kroisenbrunner, the current treasurer and former president of Kitchener Waterloo Cambridge Bassmasters. "I'm very disappointed that some anglers would not be responsible enough to take their waste and dispose of it properly," he said. "We pride ourselves within Ontario and our overall parent organization [in the U.S.] as being conservation-minded." Kroisenbrunner said it's not often that he hears about swans and other animals being tangled up in fishing lines within their community. "Wildlife in general, all species of animals have a right to a clean and healthy environment," he said. "That's why we promote conservation, cleaning up after yourself, taking all your garbage with you and not leaving it on riverbanks or in parks or anywhere else where anglers are doing something that we love to do." But there are things a responsible angler can do, says Lamberink-van Wijk — the easiest one is to ask for help. She says people may feel embarrassed when they hook or get an animal tangled with their fishing line and they may just "cut the line and get out of there because you may not want people to know that this happened." "If you hook an animal, call the wildlife centre, call somebody that can help, set aside the fact that you're embarrassed, and just fess up," she said. "Help the situation because in the end, you're going to help an animal." To prevent similar situations from happening in the future, Lamberink-van Wijk says education is the number one tool. The most obvious lesson from this unfortunate event, she says, is for anglers to make sure that they collect all their fishing gear before leaving. "After weekends, we pick up handfuls of [fishing line] along the shoreline, and animals do get tangled up," she said. "Don't leave it behind because animals get stuck and killed." To report trumpeter swans in distress or that need rescuing, send the Trumpeter Swan Conservation of Ontario a message on their Facebook group
CTV News
a day ago
- CTV News
Cécile Dionne, one of the famous Dionne quintuplets, dead at 91: family spokesperson
Cécile Dionne, left, and her sister Anette are seen Thursday, May 18, 2017 in St-Bruno, Que. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson Cécile Dionne, one of the world-famous Dionne quintuplets, died earlier this week at the age of 91 following a long illness, a family spokesperson confirmed Friday. Cécile and her sisters became an instant global sensation from the moment of their birth in the Ontario community of Corbeil on May 28, 1934 as they became the first quintuplets known to survive past infancy. Carlo Tarini, a spokesperson of the family, confirmed the death and told The Canadian Press that Cécile died early Monday morning. "She lived her life with quiet dignity, exemplary discretion, and gentle humour, despite the hardships of a childhood lived in the public eye," reads an obituary Tarini shared. Cécile weighed less than two pounds when she was born and dealt with osteoporosis and other ongoing health problems related to her premature birth. She also fought COVID-19 twice, Tarini said. "She was not just a survivor, she was a real fighter. She showed remarkable strength of character," Tarini said in an interview Friday. The Dionne quintuplets were hailed as a salve to the gloom of financial austerity at the peak of their Depression-era fame — but the sisters said the attention came at a personal cost. Cécile and her sister Annette, who is now the last remaining quintuplet, spoke to The Canadian Press in 2019 and said parents should view childhood as a precious time that shouldn't be exploited for profit. When the quintuplets were only months old, the Ontario government took them away from their cash-strapped parents, who already had five children before their brood doubled overnight. The government then installed them across the street from their childhood home in a nursery-style exhibition called Quintland, where millions of tourists lined up to observe the girls sitting in a closed compound through one-way glass. The attraction became so popular that the route between Toronto and North Bay was expanded to a four-lane highway to accommodate the flood of tourists coming to visit the quintuplets, Tarini said. The girls also became ambassadors for companies such as Kellogg's and Palmolive, and had five identical ships named after them during the Second World War. When the quintuplets were 18 years old, they decided to move away from home and out of the public eye. But it was thanks to Cécile that the sisters came forward asking for compensation, Tarini said, prompting the Ontario government to issue an apology and a $4-million settlement to the three surviving Dionne quintuplets in 1998 for the years they spent on display. In the rare times she'd speak out during adulthood, Cécile was a vocal advocate on the consequences of childhood fame. In 1997, Cécile, Annette and Yvonne emerged momentarily from their privacy to publish an open letter in Time magazine offering advice to the McCaughey family from Iowa after they welcomed septuplets. "We sincerely hope a lesson will be learned from examining how our lives were forever altered by our childhood experience," the sisters wrote in the letter. "Multiple births should not be confused with entertainment, nor should they be an opportunity to sell products." The Dionne quintuplets' family home has since been moved from its original site and transformed into a museum in North Bay, Ont., where the family legacy lives on. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 1, 2025. Natasha Baldin, The Canadian Press
