MISCELLANEOUS. On this Monday off for Canada Day, a group of five friends will long remember their journey on the water. After a mishap on the Saint-François River, three of them were rescued by the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) helicopter and dropped off on dry land in Saint-Joachim-de-Courval.
The story began when five friends decided to go down the Saint-François River, at the level of the Sanctuary Park, in Saint-Majorique.
“We walked a little and not so far from the parking lot, we can go down to the river. We put our boats in the water. We wanted to go to Pierreville with the current. We started going down the river, but the boats weren’t really adapted for this kind of adventure… We ended up in the water pretty quickly. Two of us were able to reach the bank a little further and go back up to the trail. We (a man and two women) couldn’t get there. My friend went around in the water, but with a rope, we were able to bring her back to us. We were on a rock, safe, so we decided not to move from there and wait for help, because the cliff was really too high,” explained L’Express M. Horion.
The firefighters had been called out once to help the two men who had already reached dry land. A few minutes later, they headed back to Saint-Majorique to try to help the victims.
“Due to the current and the strong flow caused by the rains of the last few days, it was impossible for us to recover the victims without putting our responders at risk. We then called on the Sûreté du Québec rescue team,” said Mario Girard, division chief at the Drummondville fire department.
The impressive SQ helicopter arrived around 4 p.m. and first flew over the area to conduct a reconnaissance of the scene. Quickly, a police officer specialized in this type of rescue descended with the help of a cable to the victims to rescue them. One by one, they took their places in the helicopter.
The craft then flew over the village of Saint-Joachim, on the other side of the river, before landing on the soccer field adjacent to the church. The event quickly aroused the curiosity of residents in the area.
“It’s impressive to see their work up close. I heard that and I wondered what was going on. At least people are decent,” said a woman admiring the work of the police.
As he exited the helicopter, one of the victims wanted to send a message to boaters. “It’s lucky we had our life jackets. Wear your life jackets. It doesn’t matter: for a short trip on a river, in a lake… wear your life jackets. It saved our lives, that’s for sure. We learned a lesson from this today and I want people to take advantage of our experience to be aware of the dangers,” Mr. Horion said before rejoining his friends.
Fortunately, the boaters were not injured.
Following the rescue, the citizens of Saint-Joachim approached the helicopter to admire it more closely. The police officers even took the time to take pictures of the residents with the machine and they answered questions from the most curious.
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