2670. The dangerous lake © Bruce Goodman 20 March 2023

Well! I had been sent by my editor to the lake to get a few photos. The lake was a popular swimming place but known for drownings. Hardly a year had gone by when there hadn’t been at least one drowning. The magazine was going to publish an article highlighting the dangers of swimming in the lake. Hence the need for a few photos. When I arrived at the lake there were half a dozen people swimming about. In fact they were playing with a beach ball, tossing it one to another and judging from what I saw I deduced that the aim was to steal the beach ball off the opposition. One of the contributing factors to the drownings is the weed. There is thick water weed growing on the lake floor and occasionally someone’s foot gets tangled in the weed and they can’t emerge. And then a miracle happened! This woman – I suppose she was about twenty – got caught in the weed. She was jumping up and waving and gasping for air. She was going under and remerging and flaying about like an octopus. At first I thought she must have been bitten by a fish or something. Then all went still. Her beach ball friends were stunned into silence, and she sort of floated and went under. Floated and went under several times. I managed to capture it all. My editor is going to be thrilled. Contact Author Back to Index Next Story Previous Story