Another youth drowns after trying to jump lock

AN INQUEST has heard how a teenager, trying impress his girl friend attempted to jump across a narrow lock, but fell in and drowned, with the girl friend also drowning.

Both the teenagers,  Fayz Uddin and Sara Rylance, were discovered face down in the top lock (pictured) of Smethwick Locks on the Wolverhampton Level that drop the waterway down to  the Birmingham Main Line at Sandwell, after a friend who was with them contacted the emergency services, Alan Tilbury reveals. (We regret we previously gave the locks as Factory Locks, as was reported locally, and thank Phil Clayton for pointing this out.)

Tried to save him

When the boy failed to jump across the lock, but fell in, his girl friend then jumped in to try and save him, but failed, resulting in the tragic death of them both, as both were unable to get out of the narrow Birmingham Main Line lock.

Paramedics arrived within 15 minutes, pulling the two out of the lock,  but were unable to resuscitate either of them.

The friend who was at the scene sitting on a bench with them told the inquest that Fayz Uddin suddenly stood up and attempted to jump across the lock but failed.

Another death

This was the second incident within a few months of the death of a teenager wanting to impress a girl friend, when Mike Sutton, walking by the locks at the top of Heartbreak Hill at Red Bull on the Trent & Mersey Canal attempted to jump across a narrow lock, but hit his head on the side it being empty at the time.

His girl friend Danielle, told him not to try and jump it, but he still went ahead, but failed to reach the other side. (The picture shows the narrow lock at Red Bull.)

[It is to be hoped that British Waterways do not have another health and safety brain-storm and decide to fence off every narrow lock.]