A meeting to discuss safety was called following a July 28 drowning at Haviland Pond.
LUDLOW – Swimmers at Haviland Pond must take personal safety precautions, selectmen and police officials said at a Monday meeting.
The meeting was called to discuss ways to improve safety at Haviland Pond following at July 28 drowning at the pond.
“Personal responsibility is required,” Selectmen Chairman William E. Rooney who convened the meeting said.
Ansar Shakirov of California who was staying with relatives in West Springfield drowned in the pond while attempting to swim with a friend from the boat ramp off Center Street to the island in the middle of Haviland Pond.
Rooney said he wished to remind swimmers that the water off the shore gets deep quickly.
“If you’re at all shaky swimming over your head, don’t go out to the island,” he said.
The boat ramp off Center Street is posted for no swimming.
The adjacent sandy beach has three lifeguards on duty.
Sean McBride, chairman of the Recreation Commission, said some people use the boat ramp and other points along the pond to enter the water to save on the $4 beach entrance fee. The $4 fee is for non-residents. Residents can use the beach for free.
Some swimmers also avoid the beach area, McBride said, because swimmers at the beach are not permitted to swim out past the roped area.
There are also swimmers who go to the beach after it is closed, even though the beach area is closed off by a chain link fence.
Chester Giza, a member of the Pond Commission, said there have always been some swimmers who have ignored the rules and gone swimming beyond the roped in beach area.
He said kids have always delighted in swimming out to the island in the middle of the pond.
The boat ramp off Center Street was built by the state, but is maintained by the town. The state has posted the boat ramp as a no swimming area.
Douglas Cameron of the state Department of Fish & Game said the boat ramp will be posted with signs stating that swimmers off the boat ramp risk being fined $100 by the state.
The death in Haviland Pond was the third outside drowning in recent weeks
.
Keith Rainville, 45, a homeless man, drowned July 18 while swimming in the Connecticut River.
A week earlier, Carlos S. Torres, 22, of 774 State St., Springfield, drowned while swimming in Wilbraham’s Spec Pond.