Casper Firefighters Rescue 2 People at White Water Park During Training
On Sunday, members of the Casper Firefighters managed to bring two people to shore after their boat capsized in the white water park.
According to a Facebook post by the Casper Firefighters, they were training Sunday afternoon when they witnessed the two people's boat flip, with both people not wearing lifejackets.
Andrew Sundell, Casper Fire-EMS Public Information Officer, said that two males were piloting an inflatable raft near the first set of four rocks along the water park.
Because neither of the two people whose boat flipped was in the water for very long, Sundell said there wasn't a need to do any kind of resuscitation.
During the summer, Casper Firefighters train for six to 10 days with different crews to make sure their training is up to date.
On Sunday, Sundell said that there were 12 firefighters at the water park who started doing the training at 8:15 a.m., with two of them in a rescue boat and two in the water at the time of the accident sometime in the afternoon.
Sundell said that accidents like these happen almost daily during the summer, so they almost always encounter an event like this while firefighters are doing their training.
"It's not uncommon when we're at the river to have to do a rescue. It happens relatively frequently," Sundell said. "I don't have any actual numbers in front of me, but speaking from experience, we respond to a reported river rescue or possible river rescue almost every day in the summer, and people flip over in their boats and their kayaks and their inner tubes much more frequently than that. And they luckily get themselves out of the water...The vast majority of the people that we have to help are not wearing lifejackets."
Sundell also stressed the importance of wearing a life jacket, and that even though they're trained professionals, they still wear life jackets whenever they go into the river.