Dangerous waters – RI bays and beach breaks, pools and ponds, are death scenes this summer

WARWICK – As tiny waves slosh onto the sandy spit at Conimicut Point, a loud siren interferes with nature’s soundtrack.

Emergency lights flash from a warning system mounted to the top of a pole. After the piercing siren, which has a klaxon-like rhythm, an authoritative voice commands the attention of anyone on the point.

“Attention!” it says. “Attention!”

“Dangerous tidal and current conditions are approaching! You are advised to leave the sandbar immediately!”

The warning system at Conimicut Point, which includes the same cautions in Spanish, is a new feature that arrived in time for the 2024 swimming season.

Time will tell if the gadgetry makes a major impact on safety over the long term by raising awareness of the point’s hazards, deterring risky behavior and substantially reducing or even eliminating drownings and other water-related fatalities.

So far, the swimming season at Conimicut has been safer this year, with no fatalities or serious injuries, according to Warwick’s police chief, Col. Brad Connor.

Unfortunately, there are lots of other ways for people to put themselves at risk in the water in Rhode Island, from backyard pools to high cliffs along Narragansett Bay, to Atlantic Ocean rip currents.

The state has not avoided tragedy this summer.

Double fatality in Omega Pond believed to be accidental

The deaths of two kayakers on Omega Pond in East Providence drew widespread attention as the news broke on July 5.

The bodies of Joseph Fritz, 52, of East Providence, and Gregory Boerman, 37, of Allston, Massachusetts, were found submerged in the pond. Their kayaks were floating nearby.

Neither Fritz nor Boerman wore a life jacket.

Investigators believe both men drowned accidentally, East Providence police Capt. Michael Rapoza said last week.

However, the medical examiner won’t have an official report on the deaths until they receive a toxicology report.

The toxicology could clarify if alcohol was a factor in the deaths.

Nine people drowned in 2023, RI Health Department says

Tom Griffiths is an aquatic safety expert.

Griffiths, who studies drownings, developed a widely employed strategy that lifeguards can use to surveil swimmers.

Griffith believes signs can help deter some people from taking risks they shouldn’t take, but he also says signs and even blinking lights can fail.

“Signage can work, but I think it has to be creative,” he said.

He said he likes the combination of lights, signs and announcements put in place at Conimicut.

Anniversary of the Conimicut Point double fatality

June 20 was the anniversary of the 2021 double-fatality at Conimicut Point that took the lives of 10-year-old Yoskarly Martinez and a 35-year-old Central Falls man who died trying to save her.

Large warning signs with bright red lettering were posted in the sand near the device.

To the west, the back of the point, but not the submerged sandbar, was inhabited by people who were fishing.

It was a visible difference from previous years, when almost always some anglers would wade into the shallows along the point, to the east, and toward the strong currents in between the lighthouse and the dry sand at the point.

On this occasion, this year, the shallows were people-free.

Then, at high tide, a couple wearing bathing suits sauntered out onto the point. They waded in to their shins, to their waists.

Then for a while, they played together, neck deep, in dangerous waters off the point.

Water-related deaths in Rhode Island since the first day of spring include:

July 23 : North Providence police investigated the death of a 4-year-old boy in a pool. Investigators were told the boy was pulled from the pool after “an undetermined amount of time” underwater.

July 21: The body of 65-year-old Leonidas Gonzalez, of Marlborough, Massachusetts, was recovered from the Sakonnet River. Gonzalez was on the surface along a treacherous shoreline near Indian Avenue, according to Portsmouth’s deputy police chief, Maj. Michael J. Morse. Gonzalez, a retired jeweler and grandfather, frequently fished in the area, and witnesses told police he had fished for several hours on Monday, Morse said.

July 18: A 71-year-old died from injuries, including facial injuries, that he apparently suffered when a wave crashed over him as he waded along the beachfront near the Weekapaug Inn, police say.

July 5: Two men were found dead near their kayaks in Omega Pond, in East Providence. Family members say that Joseph Fritz, 52, of East Providence, and Gregory Boerman, 37, of Allston, Massachusetts, had failed to return from a kayaking excursion on July 4.

June 23: Dexter Gutierrez Matias, 20, of East Providence, was seen in an area known as the “12 O’Clock High” on the north end of Brenton Point shoreline in Newport. Matias had been enjoying the day at the beach with friends who were helping him improve his swimming skills so he could bring his son to the beach and teach him to swim, a GoFundMe page says. “His friends tried to help save him, but they were unable to,” the page says. Searchers, including a Coast Guard air crew in a helicopter, couldn’t find him. On July 3, a man’s body was recovered in the same part of the shoreline where Matias had gone missing.

June 20: Souleymane Diagne, 29, of Senegal, is pronounced dead after Smithfield firefighters try to revive him. Diagne had been unresponsive when he was pulled from a pool at The Last Resort.

May 16: The body of a man believed to be in his early 50s is found along the Woonasquatucket River near Aleppo Street, according to Providence police.

May 14: A kayaker sees a man’s body in the Pawtuxet River near a bridge at the end of Mill Street in Cranston.

April 7: A surveillance camera along the shore of the Pawcatuck River near the public boat ramp in downtown Westerly records video of 40-year-old Matthew Brouillette, unsteady on his feet, falling into the river. Searchers are unable to find him that night. The following day a K9 team detects Brouillette’s body underwater. His body is about 30 feet from where he had fallen in and about 8 feet from shore.