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River Rescue Serves As Summer Safety Lesson

By Hadas Kuznits

GLADWYNE, Pa. (CBS) - A river rescue in Gladwyne can be used as a summer safety lesson.

The Gladwyne Fire Department was dispatched to the Flat Rock Dam for a water rescue of a man who eventually made it out of the dam without any serious injuries.

"With his legs trapped underneath the tree against the dam, he was unable to move. He was hanging onto the tree with the current from the dam coming over the dam pressing up against him," says Gladwyne fire chief Blaine Leis.

"People still find the need to go down there and swim at the bottom of the dam.  People actually slide down the dam like it's a sliding board causing many difficult rescues during our years of service down there."

He says the lesson here is do not go swimming in any body of water where there is no lifeguard.

"If you don't know how to read the river, know where all these hazards are, you end up with situations like this."

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