The BC Coroners Service has identified the man who died Aug. 3 as a result of head injuries sustained after diving into the Adams River.
Robert Bruce Boyd, 49, from Kamloops, was enjoying an afternoon with his family about 800 metres upstream from the Squilax-Anglemont Road bridge.
Boyd dove into a river pool and,when he failed to resurface, family and friends went in after him and got him to shore.
RCMP Const. Jonathan Spooner says the Chase detachment received a report that the man had sustained serious injuries.
He says when he arrived at the scene, the man was unconscious and had a very weak pulse.
Shuswap Search and Rescue (SAR) search manager John Schut received a call for assistance at 2:30 p.m., responding with nine members of the team.
Schut says that by the time SAR arrived, paramedics had hiked into the area just below the gorge with a stretcher.
It took a combined effort on the part of Chase RCMP, BC Ambulance and SAR to transport the critically injured man overland to a BC Ambulance helicopter in a staging area just west of the bridge.
But, despite efforts by paramedics, Boyd succumbed to his injuries before the helicopter could depart.
Spooner calls Boyd’s death a tragedy and adds that, from a police perspective, it’s a reminder that diving into unknown waters is extremely dangerous.
“Alcohol was not a factor, just some wrong judgment,” he said, noting the water level in local lakes and rivers has dropped substantially over the summer.
The BC Coroners Service continues to investigate this death.
Family members have all been notified of Boyd’s death and, on their behalf, the coroners service is asking that their privacy be respected at this difficult time.
Spooner has high praise for the members of SAR, who he describes as being a great help both during the rescue and once the matter was turned over to the coroner’s office.
Woman rescued
SAR was kept busy over the August long weekend, also responding to a call for help on the Enderby Cliffs Sunday night.
Ten members responded to the call for assistance that came in at 9 p.m.
Schut says a women had broken her leg at the top of the Enderby Cliffs on a portion of a trail that was marked “closed.”
“She broke her ankle quite badly in two places,” he says, estimating the local woman to be in her late 30s or early 40s. “We needed the rope team to pull her out of a really, really steep, gnarly trail.”
Once her rescuers had her strapped onto a stretcher, Schut says it took all 10 SAR members to pull the stretcher out of the ugly terrain.
“We transferred the stretcher onto the wheel and hiked to a waiting ATV for a trip down to the ambulance,” he said, noting the woman was co-operative and very grateful.
Schut, a Salmon Valley farmer, says the rescue mission took about four hours from the time of the call until the time the crew was back at SAR headquarters.
“I got home at three in the morning and climbed into bed as the morning milking began,” he says.