Capsize children pulled from river (From News Shopper)

Capsize children pulled from river

10:43pm Saturday 12th May 2012 in National News © Press Association 2013

Three children have been pulled from the River Avon after the boat they were travelling in capsized, but emergency services were carrying out a full-scale search for a missing adult.

West Midlands Ambulance Service said two of the children were pulled out of the water, which was in full flow, by a resident and a police officer.

A third child was recovered from the water shortly before 9pm on Saturday, a spokesman for the service said. He said all three were alive, although ill, and a search was continuing for an adult, who was also in the small boat.

One of the two children recovered from the water had suffered a cardiac arrest and was given CPR by the resident and the policeman before paramedics arrived.

The youngster, whose age and gender have not been released, was taken to Warwick Hospital by land ambulance and was seriously ill, the West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) spokesman said.

Emergency services were first called to the incident at the weir in the Barford area of Warwick at around 5.35pm, after the small boat the four were travelling in capsized. The boat has been recovered and the search continues for the missing adult.

A resident called Ali told Sky News: "Everybody's quite devastated really by what's happened, the village is pulling together. Everybody's doing everything they can, it's amazing to see the emergency services so determined to find these people who are missing.

"It's my understanding that it's a family who had the accident today. There is a weir, quite a nasty weir, the river level is very high at the moment, the current is very fast, I think they just got to the weir, and the boat went straight over it, and there's nothing they could have done to stop that happening."

She said the emergency services were "freezing cold".

"I'm doing my best to get them fed and watered, it's looking like it's going to be quite a long night for everybody involved," she added.