WITHIN the space of a few days there have been two incidents of 'chairs' rolling into the waterways together with their occupants, but both luckily had people to pull them out.
Earlier this week is was a disabled woman who was saved after the wheelchair in which she was sitting rolled into the Llangollen Canal, and now a young child in a pushchair rolled into the Nene at Whittlesey, Alan Tilbury tells us.
Pulled the pair out
Not only did the child in the pushchair roll into the river, but the grandmother in charge also went in to try and rescue the child, but luckily someone on the other bank saw what had happened and yelled to people near the incident, who immediately pulled the pair out of the water.
The wheelchair was obviously facing the river with the child throwing bread for the ducks, and like the incident on the Llangollen, the pushchair was not braked, so the movement of the child started it rolling.
Very different
In both cases there were other people about, otherwise the result could have been very different, like the case on the Bridgewater Canal at Stockton Heath where a disabled man in a wheelchair rolled into the waterway and drowned, left facing the canal in a wheelchair with no brakes applied, and it being told at the inquest that he was unable to apply them himself.
The moral is obvious.