SOUTH BOWERS, Del. --- Life Ring stations have been placed in the area of South Bowers following a pair of drownings that happened earlier in the year at the quiet coastal community in Kent County.
Joseph Yonker, the president of South Bowers Volunteer Fire Company, said the organization has installed a pair of life rings stations in the area of the beach and Murderkill River. There are also plans for another ring station being installed near the area where two day-tripping brothers from Pennsylvania drowned in late June after being caught up in the river's undertow current.
Had the life rings been available during that incident, Yonker noted that the two men may have been saved after the brothers and at least one member of their group were caught off guard by a tide that quickly submerged an area next to the river they had been standing on. South Bowers' assistant fire chief rescued two people from the water while he was off-duty but was unable to rescue the brothers.
"There's a good possibility somebody could have got out to them and we could have saved a total of four lives that day," he said.
A life ring station in South Bowers.
One of the life rings is located along the beach while the other is located at the South Bowers' fire company dock. In order to retrieve one of the life rings, someone must push in a piece of plexiglass to unlock the cover protecting the ring---a process similar to the "break in case of emergency" features used to access fire axes or other safety devices.
Alice Pauley, a longtime South Bowers resident, said she felt the life rings would be helpful for the area, especially because many out-of-state visitors who come to the beach are not familiar with how dangerous the Murderkill River can be.
"You can't be stupid around water," she said.