Friends' search for missing boaters a dangerous idea: firefighters
Friends' search for missing boaters a dangerous idea: firefighters
Ottawa firefighters stopped a group of friends from beginning their own water search Monday for two missing boaters.
Rescue workers arrived at Britannia Beach as the group was inflating a dinghy in which it planned to set out on to the Ottawa River — from the same area where the missing boaters were last seen Saturday.
The inflatable yellow boat the two men used on the weekend was recovered east of the Deschenes Rapids Sunday along with a lifejacket, but there has still been no sign of the boaters.
Chen Yuan, 20, and Fanzheng Meng, 28, who are both international students from China, were last seen boating away from the beach toward the Gatineau side of the river.
Police announced Monday they have called off the search for the missing boaters.
They also told the group of friends on Monday that they should be worried about their own safety around the river.
"What we don't want is for you to go out in a boat — yeah, that is not a boat. That's a toy," one firefighter told the group.
"It's very, very dangerous this time of year. You don't realize it here because the water's so calm."
The boaters' friends, however, said they haven't yet given up on their search for the two students.
"The police told us and actually showed us how big the river is," said Lake Zhang. "It's not a normal river — it's a huge river. Rapids and really dangerous."
Zhang said the advice police gave them about the river simply changes the way that the group of friends will conduct its search.
"The boat we actually bought is too small for the river. So we're probably not going to go into the river. We'll probably search on the shore. We'll probably go to the other side of the shore to search," he said.
"We have to keep searching."
