IWS warning to young people jumping off city bridges

Irish Water Safety has issued a grave warning to youngsters after a video has been circulated showing people jumping off bridges in the city.

The latest venue of choice has been Cork’s newest bridge the Mary Elmes bridge which just opened last week.

The 165-tonne bridge that connects St. Patrick's Quay and Merchant's Quay is 66 metres long and has proved popular with the Cork population over the past week.

Chief Executive of Irish Water Safety said young people needed to realise this was “an incredibly dangerous pursuit.” 

“We do not encourage people to jump off bridges. We have seen cases of people ending up with back, neck or leg injuries as well as cuts and bruises.” 

Mr Leech said that people often do not understand the tides or get the times wrong and end up jumping into shallow water.

“In extreme cases, people have been left paraplegic,” Mr Leech said.

Mr Leech called it “crazy bravado stuff” and appealed to young people and their parents to not partake or encourage this type of behaviour.

While Mr Leech said, while jumping off bridges was not recommended, safe open water swimming was encouraged and there was no better time to be in the water.

“The water temperature is just beautiful at the moment. It is much warmer than last year.” The Chief Executive said that the more accustomed people are to swimming safely in open water, the better equipped they would be in an emergency to handle the environment.

“Swimming in a canal or a lake or at a beach is very different to swimming in a heated pool,” Mr Leech said.

Finally, the Irish Water Safety representative reminded people not to swim in reservoirs or lakes.