IT’S NOT AN unusual sight to see young people jumping into Dublin’s Grand Canal Dock during the summer months.
It’s not normally from the height of four stories, however…
[Photo: Jonny Lennon]
The image above was taken nearby the Grand Canal Dock DART station yesterday afternoon.
If you can’t quite make them out — it shows at least one young man jumping feet-first into the water from four-storey high scaffolding.
It almost goes without saying that this is incredibly unsafe. Not to mention incredibly stupid.
Who are we to judge though… Here’s what the Irish Coast Guard and Irish Water Safety had to say about it:
The Irish Coast Guard advises people to only swim at beaches and waterways where lifeguards are on duty, to obey the safety flags indicating whether it is safe to swim, and to always avoid swimming in locks and weirs.The Coast Guard strongly urges people not to engage in this particular type of activity.
Swimmers are literally jumping into the unknown, and there may be submerged objects which are not visible and which may cause serious injury.
And to hammer home the point (though hopefully we don’t really need to):
Jumping from or diving into water from a great height and hitting the water incorrectly at speed can be compared to hitting concrete. This will result in extremely serious injury to the body both externally and internally and may result in the jumper being paraplegic for the rest of their life, if they survive at all.Jumping or diving from a height always holds the risk of miscalculating the jumping distance necessary out from the edge, resulting in the jumper hitting obstacles on the way down and possibly being unconscious when hitting the water – resulting in death.
There is also the possibility that one will miscalculate the depth of the water under the building. Hitting the bottom or a submerged hidden hazard can easily result in death.
— Irish Water Safety.
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