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As the search for a girl missing in the Thames River in London continued Friday, an eyewitness who was fishing when she disappeared recalled how he tried to save her in the fast-moving current.
The 11-year-old boy, who’d been fishing with his grandfather Thursday, said he saw the girl playing in the water upstream nearby when she began to struggle and the current pushed her downstream toward him.
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The boy, whom The London Free Press is not identifying, said he grabbed a long stick and extended it out toward the girl but she was too far away to reach it.
“The water pushed her,” said the youth, who returned to the area Friday with a relative as the search continued.
The boy, who’d been fishing off a retaining wall along the river behind the 800 block of Kipps Lane, said a woman he believed to be the girl’s mother had been standing along the river upstream of him. She also tried to save the girl, he said, but had two small children with her.
After the girl disappeared in the water, the 11-year-old said, he yelled for assistance.
“I was screaming for 911 and for help,” said the boy. He said he heard the mother make a frantic call that he assumed was to 911.
Searchers were conducting a recovery mission Friday for the girl, whom authorities have not publicly identified except to say the child is a girl under age 10.
What’s known is that the girl entered the river about 300 metres east of the Adelaide Street North bridge on Thursday about 3 p.m. Firefighters and police quickly descended and began searching the river and its banks, with dive teams from Waterloo Region police and the OPP called in.
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Friday, an OPP helicopter was flying over the area and police were also using aerial drones in the search.
“The search efforts continue and have now transitioned into a recovery effort to locate the missing child,” London police said, adding the search will continue into the weekend if needed and that people should stay away from the river.
Difficult at the best of times, with murky water and bends and trees and shoreline bushes, river searches are compounded when heavy rainfall like London has had lately swells waterways and makes the currents faster.
The area conservation authority had reduced the flow of water into the Thames from its Fanshawe dam in London to help aid in search efforts.
More than 25 civilians helped with the search on Thursday, Jeff Johnston, a district chief with the London fire department, estimated. But on Friday, police asked Londoners to leave the search to emergency crews equipped with the appropriate safety gear, citing the river’s high levels and fast-moving water as safety concerns.
It’s “a very sad situation,” said a woman who lives in the same nearby building as the missing girl, who walked along the riverbank Thursday night helping to look for her.
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