As the author of that article, I re-iterate the need to stay out of the water now that the swimming ban is in place. The section of the article related to MacKenzie Falls, which noted that a swimming ban was in place, has now been removed. It was originally based on my experiences of swimming there prior to the ban. All of the past drownings were tragic, but in my view, also highly preventable. To set the record straight about the circumstances around the 2004 drowning of 4 people, and whether my article in this regard was inaccurate as suggested by one reader below, according to The Age newspaper (27/12/2004), police acting Inspector Bob Thomson was reported as saying he believed that the 12 year old girl had been sitting on the rocks and had slipped into the water, and that all four who drowned were non-swimmers. With regard to the January 2018 drowning, The Age newspaper (22/1/18) quoted a witness as saying that the man who drowned "didn’t even swim there, he was sitting on the rock and must have slipped". The December 2018 drowning was the only one that involved someone who was actually swimming in the water. All who drowned in each of these events were overseas tourists, unfamiliar with local conditions. As far as I am aware, there were no reported drownings at MacKenzie Falls prior to 2004, but I am willing to be corrected on that if you know more. Thousands of people swim safely at waterfalls all around Australia every year, including at MacKenzie Falls, both before and after the ban, and the undercurrents at MacKenzie Falls are not unique. The problems as I see it are inadequate barriers, lack of on-site information about the specific risks at this site, and lack of education/awareness about waterfall undercurrents for swimmers in water safety campaigns. I can read through the relevant coroner reports if these can be provided by the police, to correct my understanding of events garnered from media reports. I can be contacted via my websitehttps://swimh.com/home-feed.htm if you wish to discuss this further.
