Canadian Couple Rescued from Rising Rapids in Mountain Pine Ridge

A Canadian couple’s adventure in the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve (MPR) took a scary turn when they became stuck between rushing rapids on Saturday afternoon. Around four thirty in the evening, the couple had gone swimming in the Rio on Pools when the water began rising due to a flash flood.  The couple was able to settle on a rock but they were stranded for hours due to the dangers in trying to swim to shore amid the flood.  The duo, who reportedly live in the MPR, remained trapped for nearly five hours until emergency services rescued them just before 9 o’clock. Our newsroom spoke to Jeremiah Allen who was in the area with his nephew when the flash flood began. He spoke about alerting emergency services and the collective efforts to rescue the couple.

Jeremiah Allen, Cayo Resident: “I had to make a decision immediately. They need help. They need emergency rescue right away. And so I hand signaled out to them. The lady started to get down into the water like she was gonna try to get to shore and I could tell it was just gonna be  tragic if she got swept away and there’s no way she would have made it the rapids were far too strong, the current. So I hand signaled to them, just wait on the rock. And I said I made the signal of a telephone I’m gonna call for help. And he gave me a thumbs up back and she stood back up and got out of the water. And they said that they would wait basically. I think they understood what I was motioning to them. So I got up to the lookout point where I could get a telephone signal. And I sent a message out to the Buy and Sell Community in the Spanish Lookout area. I figured that was the widest spread and the quickest way to get help. And so immediately people started responding and the alert, the distress call was heard. And about 20 minutes later the first rescuers started showing up the first rescue team from Spanish Lookout showed up just around five 30, about an hour after the original flood. But there was several different rescue teams that showed up both the Spanish Lookout fire and rescue. The BDF had a team that came out. The Blancaneaux Lodge they sent their rescue team out. Also the EMS from San Ignacio and BSART, the Belize Search and Rescue team they all came out and all of them were working together very well late into the evening. The couple finally got off the rock and were successfully rescued at around 8:20 last night. So they were in the river for four hours and 20 minutes from the time they got stranded till the time they were rescued. So I just praise God that he put me there in the right place at the right time.”

The couple was given life jackets and taken to safety just before 9 o’clock.