The cruel Thames: the job of pulling bodies from a dark, dangerous river

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/14/the-cruel-thames-the-job-of-pulling-bodies-from-a-dark-dangerous-river

by annabyrd • 2 years ago

58 44 2 years ago

I live next to Baltimore and somewhat frequently you hear about a body fished out of the Inner Harbor. Just like in The Wire. Though I’m sure every city on a body of water experiences the same thing.

osullish• 2 years ago

Love that season of the Wire. I'm from rural Ireland and there is a body of water near my home that is a suicide hotspot - 2 towns on the same river have given their share of young men to it unfortunately.

WilTimSon2• 2 years ago

There is a rather prevalent belief, perhaps even a subconscious one, among people that suicide by leaping into a body of water is the go-to method. Probably doesn't help that it's been shown in media a lot, probably only below hanging and, perhaps, wrist-slitting. Anecdotally, at least 5 or 6 people that I've spoken to when discussing some grim news regarding events like these had the impression that suicide by water was a fast and calm process, which it most certainly is not. I still think about Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit and his tragic demise, that one was very publicised and I can only hope it didn't inspire too many other struggling people.

RajT88• 2 years ago

Chicago for sure. Both river and lake. I have seen a couple myself be retrieved.

londons_explore2• 2 years ago

This article was amended on 14 February 2024 to remove some details for consistency with editorial guidance.

Too gruesome?

Vecr• 2 years ago

Is the archive at https://archive.is/Q8tZB before or after they did that?

jayceedenton3• 2 years ago

It's before!

A couple I noticed (sorry, not at a computer right now):

Only with decomposition will they begin to float.
“There have been people that have jumped off Dartford Bridge and ended up in central London.

Completely unnecessary edits if you ask me.

willyt2• 2 years ago

The river police and the transport police have a pretty traumatic job in London. But the RNLI, also mentioned in the article, is the maritime search and rescue service for the UK. It’s completely funded by charitable donations and most of the crew are unpaid volunteers; anyone can volunteer. Edit, submitted before finished: At many other towns and cities around the UK which don’t have specialist police units like this and where there are also suicide hotspots the job of body recovery falls to these volunteers.

flir2• 2 years ago

the RNLI, also mentioned in the article, is the maritime search and rescue service for the UK

HM Coastguard.

arethuza2• 2 years ago

HM Coastguard and the RNLI do different roles though - the former is more about co-ordination amongst different rescue agencies and the RNLI runs lifeboats.

willyt2• 2 years ago

Yes technically true. HMCG are recognised in international law as responsible for maritime search and rescue operations in UK territorial waters. Practically speaking in most cases if you have a problem in UK (and Irish) waters the RNLI is probably going to search for and rescue you, if it’s really bad you’ll get a helicopter dispatched as well from Bristow helicopters who are subcontracted to HMCG but I think there’s only about 6 choppers covering the whole of the UK.

eszed• 2 years ago

RNLI standards for crewing and training are very high, and their equipment is top-notch. They have years'-long waiting lists for applicants. (That's at least true in the regions in the South with which I'm familiar. Not sure about elsewhere in the country.) They're an incredible organization that I think should receive more attention than they do.

Source: sailed a bit along the Solent, and got to know some RNLI crew and hopefuls. Have been aboard RNLI rescue craft, and was fortunate enough to ride along on a demonstration runs.

veunes• 2 years ago

I was surprised to know that you can swim in the Thames. There are a number of designated swimming spots along the Thames, where it is safer to swim. These spots are usually located in areas with calmer water and less boat traffic.

wirrbel2• 2 years ago

I grew up swimming in our local river. Obviously the river Thames is a different kind of beast with currents, etc.

However I nowadays would be very reluctant for swimming in rivers as soon as one is downstream of a sewer leading into the waters.

Furthermore the river I swam in is downstream of an area that industrially was heavily involved in galvanics. While the water itself is clean, who knows what heavy metals are still in the river bed and mud.

I can only imagine what the mud of the river Thames and its sources contains.

Oh and even in the mountains I remember how - on a hike - a friend contemplated drinking from that clear water stream shooting down the rocks and was glad not to have done that after seeing the poop from geese and cattle just a 100 m upstream.

Amoeba, E. coli etc are not fun.

jeffwass• 2 years ago

Regarding drinking from streams, back in the mid-90’s I did a camping/hiking excursion with Outward Bound in the Appalachians of North Carolina.

We sourced all our drinking water from streams, using concentrated iodine to make the water drinkable (I think we had to wait 30 mins for it to take effect).

There was one part of the journey where we ran out of water and couldn’t drink from a nearby small river because it was downstream of a paper processing factory. And we had to go out of our way using old school topographical maps (which we used for all our navigation) to find another water source and hope it was available and flowing.

zabzonk• 2 years ago

i worked for a university of london microbiology department in the early 80s, and one of my least favourite tasks was to go down to the thames (i used steps outside the national theatre) and get a couple of litres of river water for the students to experiment with. jesus, you would not believe the bacterial load in there! but i believe things have got better since then.

taneq• 2 years ago

Never drink from a river that’s downstream of farm land (without thoroughly boiling the water), either. You might be thinking ‘yeah, cows and sheep poop outside’ but they also sometimes wander off, die and leave their rotting corpses in the stream.

vr46• 2 years ago

Generally, I wouldn't get in the water anywhere after Teddington Lock, because it gets very tidal, very quickly. I grew up and lived in that part of London and sections of Twickenham are regularly flooded, plus cars are regularly swept into the Thames at Richmond despite warnings and it's very quick.

This link covers that whole stretch: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.444296,-0.3255391,15z?entr...

I have ended up in Thames somewhere past London Bridge, I think, forced into wading through the mud to try and dislodge our dinghy that my perennially headlong friend had gotten stuck, and IT WAS NOT FUN, not even Type 2 fun.

At the other end, by Teddington Lock Bridge, kids are always in the water. There is a weir not far, which I regard as a "drowning machine" because it is, but the area is quite agreeable.

Here's the Teddington Lock section: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4306101,-0.3207403,435m/da...

Isleworth Ait, seen here, is frequently so empty of water that one can see the boats keels lying on the bottom:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4684678,-0.3166315,1733m/d...

Street view showing how empty it is in both directions: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4672369,-0.3218927,3a,75y,...

This spot is especially not to be fucked with, as conditions can change quickly and the treated sewage from Mogden Works ends up here. I love the Thames and have never lived more than a short walk from it, but I have a nervous respect for it, plus I am a rubbish swimmer.

mathieuh• 2 years ago

I wouldn’t swim in any bodies of water in the UK at the moment, there’s a massive scandal with the privatised sewage companies paying massive dividends to shareholders while neglecting the infrastructure and repeatedly dumping raw sewage straight into waterways.

DonHopkins• 2 years ago

Prevention is the best policy. Here is a Dutch public service announcement showing some effective solutions to the recurring problem of "micturition syncope", that makes it necessary to pull bodies (usually men, often tourists) out of the dark dangerous canals of Amsterdam, including the "grachtenplastuit" and the "krachtige straal" techniques.

Plassen in de gracht? Doe het doordacht!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMPm3RnRBuk

How many people drown in Amsterdam’s canals?

https://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/2152-amsterdam-canals-drowning...

klelatti2• 2 years ago

Once someone is reported to be in the water, invariably they must wait for the body to pop up.

Not quite invariably. The river police do rescue people who find themselves in the Thames. A couple of years ago I was walking between Southwark Bridge and Cannon Street Railway Bridge in the early evening when I noticed a group of people pointing towards something bobbing up and down in the middle of the river, in very turbulent conditions. It was someone who had fallen in. The river police arrived less than a minute or so later to rescue him. We walked down to the Bankside riverboat stop where the police dropped him off, conscious, and there was a waiting ambulance. I remember overhearing the police saying he had no idea how he fell in. I’d guess he was very lucky indeed and owed his life to the swift response of the police and whoever reported it.

sandworm101• 2 years ago

Slipped and fell into water in town. Cannot remember what happened. Struggling to swim. There is an old joke about most drowning victims being found with their fly undone. Alcohol near water is never a good idea.

klelatti2• 2 years ago

Very likely. Took place at around 8pm so post work drinks that got out of hand.

mytailorisrich• 2 years ago

Most paths along the Thames have no walls or fences, it's straight into the water.

There are also bridges with very low side walls. It's not too difficult to imagine someone losing their footing or tripping and going "overboard", especially at night on the way home from the pub...

JoeAltmaier• 2 years ago

Of all the possible swimming spots, a river is the one most fraught with mortal danger!

Scubabear68• 2 years ago

Water is much trickier than many people realize. I live on the Delaware River, near where Washington made his famous crossing. The river here is very shallow and looks deceptively peaceful.

Yet people die on this stretch every year, even experienced kayakers who let their guard down. What generally happens is someone falls out of their kayak / tube / whatever, and their feet get caught in a snag in the bottom. The river current is enough to force them under water.

Most places around here will no longer rent water equipment if the river is running high and fast, yet some foolish people manage to go out and die.

But not sure what the answer is for people falling in from the banks or bridges. Comprehensive fencing is expensive and ugly.

The cruel Thames: the job of pulling bodies from a dark, dangerous river

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