opinion

It's not even summer yet and not even really hot, but already we have our first, horrible, tragic reminder of the need to respect water as much as we welcome its cooling relief and to always recognize its dangers even as we embrace its recreation.

Such reminders have started to become annual offerings, it seems. Will this be the year we pay attention?

The weather certainly was warm enough along the Duluth lakefront Monday for a group of young people to start jumping from "the cribs," or "Uncle Harvey's Mausoleum," and into Lake Superior.

Young people have been doing that for 90 years, ever since the brownstone structure just a few feet from the shore stopped being used to store sand and gravel and was abandoned.

This time, though, a 13-year-old Duluth boy splashed in and then didn't return to the surface.

A speedy, well-organized and truly heroic search-and-rescue effort credited to the Duluth Fire Department, Duluth Police Department, U.S. Coast Guard and St. Louis County Sheriff's personnel gave the boy "a fighting chance," as the St. Louis County Rescue Squad posted on its Facebook page late Monday. "Incredible teamwork; incredible rescue."

And not the last chance rescuers will have this summer to be incredible, unfortunately, not if past years are any indication of the Northland's ability - actually, inability - to heed safety warnings and to respect the water.

Last summer in Lake Superior, children and their parents had to be rescued after being swept off their feet in chest-deep water and then carried out by an unexpected rip current. The near-tragedy was a
reminder to swim parallel to shore to escape a rip current and to remain calm, as difficult as that may be not only to do but to remember.

A day later last summer, at the sand-bottom swimming pond in Cloquet's Pinehurst Park, a 6-year-old boy, swimming and beating the heat with about 30 other children and four chaperones, disappeared before being found in the water with only a faint pulse. He later died.

In August last year, a Duluth teenager was swept away and killed in rain-swollen Amity Creek on a muggy, 86-degree day. And just days after that tragedy a man in the big lake near Glensheen Mansion, his strength sapped by hypothermia, had to be carried to safety by rescuers wearing cold-water survival suits.

Two summers ago, three people bounced off rocks after high jumps into a section of Amity Creek known as "the Deeps." One young man hit his head and had to be hospitalized. Why are kids and others still taking daring jumps at "the Deeps?" Why are parents still allowing them? Who'll be injured or killed there this year?

Jeffrey Carlos Watson Jr., 13, died aftger being taken off life support yesterday after a swimming outing the day before turned terribly wrong, something that has become achingly too common the past couple of summers in and around Duluth.

This summer can be different. We can learn from our pain to be careful while cooling off, to watch out for each other, to keep safety in mind and to be respectful of the water - all water all the time.
We've certainly had enough sadness and heart-wrenching tragedy.

It's not even summer yet and not even really hot, but already we have our first, horrible, tragic reminder of the need to respect water as much as we welcome its cooling relief and to always recognize its dangers even as we embrace its recreation.

Such reminders have started to become annual offerings, it seems. Will this be the year we pay attention?

The weather certainly was warm enough along the Duluth lakefront Monday for a group of young people to start jumping from "the cribs," or "Uncle Harvey's Mausoleum," and into Lake Superior. Young people have been doing that for 90 years, ever since the brownstone structure just a few feet from the shore stopped being used to store sand and gravel and was abandoned.

This time, though, a 13-year-old Duluth boy splashed in and then didn't return to the surface.

A speedy, well-organized and truly heroic search-and-rescue effort credited to the Duluth Fire Department, Duluth Police Department, U.S. Coast Guard and St. Louis County Sheriff's personnel gave the boy "a fighting chance," as the St. Louis County Rescue Squad posted on its Facebook page late Monday. "Incredible teamwork; incredible rescue."