Lancashire campaigner calls for better education after fatal drownings
Beckie Ramsey says she's devastated after three young boys lost their lives
A Lancashire mum is calling for better education and better signage around open water following the death of three boys who fell through frozen water in Solihull.
An 11, 10 and 8 year old boy all lost their lives and a 6 year old boy remains in a critical condition in hospital. It's understood 8 children in total were playing above the water at the time.
A statement from West Midlands Police:
"The boys, aged 11, 10 and 8 were rushed to hospital after being pulled from the water. Sadly, they could not be revived and our thoughts are with their family and friends at this deeply devastating time. We’ll have specialist officers offering them as much support as we can.
We've been working alongside colleagues from the fire and ambulance services as we do all we can to support those involved.
Searches of the lake are continuing as we seek to establish exactly what happened and if anyone else fell into the water.
We understand how distressing this is for the families and the wider community."
Beckie Ramsay became a water safety campaigner after her son Dylan drowned back in 2011.
She says more education is badly needed:
"I'm absolutely devastated about this news in Solihull. I'm just so so so so sorry for the families."
"The Government has a lot to answer for here. This should have been taught to these children in school, especially with the cold weather coming up.
"We need land owners to be more responsible and to be putting more signage out there when lakes and waterways are frozen.
"The media, parents, emergency services and schools, we should all be putting these messages out there. This isn't down to any one person or group.
"My message to children is to stay off any frozen water, you simply can't tell how thick or thin it is, you can't gauge whether it'll take your weight. My message to parents is to please look up cold water shock, please make sure you know where your kids are."
We've been working with Beckie in recent years on our own #GetWaterWise capaign.
Beckie also runs Doing it for Dylan a water safety charity set up in memory of her son.