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9 · Wednesday, July 28, 2010 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.oakvillebeaver.com Family escapes tragedy in Tuck Creek By Tim Whitnell METROLAND WEST MEDIA GROUP A mother, her young son and teenage daughter are lucky to be alive after being carried along floodwaters in what is normally a shallow and calm creek in Burlington last weekend. In a matter of moments, Nicky Ramsay, 39, went from the comfort of her home to struggling for survival in the raging waters of normally placid Tuck Creek in Burlington. Ramsay, a Burlington resident who is a nurse at Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital (OTMH), was in her Fowler Court home in the Walker's Line/Fairview Street area around 4:30 p.m. Saturday when her daughter Bailey came rushing in to tell her that her stepson had fallen in the now fast-flowing creek, made treacherous by rain earlier that day. Leif Gorrie, 8, had dipped a foot into the waters of the usually calm, but then swollen and swift-moving creek. The racing current tore off his Pokémon flip-flop. The boy tried to retrieve the footwear in the water, but was pulled into and along the stream. Leif's stepsister Abbie Ramsay, 13, immediately jumped in to save him. "I just kept saying, `I'm not going to die, I'm not going to die,'" Abbie told the Toronto Star a day after the ordeal. Bailey, 11, almost jumped in after them, but instead ran about 50 metres home to get her mother, who sprinted down to the creek and jumped in. "I couldn't believe how fast it was," Ramsay said, "and how deep it was -- I couldn't see anything or anybody.... It didn't seem we had that much rain, but I found out later that the area's storm drains gather at that spot." Ramsay told the Beaver that Leif and Abbie managed to get out of the raging waters about 200 metres downstream by grabbing onto overhanging branches and pulling themselves to shore. Abbie clawed her way out of the water and sprinted up the embankment looking for help when she came across a neighbour who called 911. Meanwhile, the stream's swift current swept the children's mother southward past the Rockwood Drive embankment. Now it was only Ramsay who was in the creek on a wild 20-minute, two-kilometre ride that ended just south of New Street. The creek, which neighbours said normally has a depth of 10-12 inches and a width of less than five feet, became engorged by the heavy downpour of rain that day with the waterway exceeding 1.5 metres (five feet) deep and swelling to about eight metres (25-30 feet) wide. "I didn't see my kids, so I wasn't trying to get out," Ramsay said of her watery ride. "I probably couldn't have even if I wanted to." She said her head went under water a couple of times. When the 5-foot-5 woman tried to touch bottom, she said LIAM CASEY / TORONTO STAR CLOSE CALL: Burlington's Nicky Ramsay, top right, and children Abbie, 13, and Leif, 8, were fortunate to survive a brush with floodwaters in Tuck Creek Saturday. Also pictured is sibling Bailey, 11. she couldn't. Thoughts of where her children were and not reaching her 40th birthday crossed her mind, she said. "There were parts where the water (current) wasn't as strong, but I had no intention of trying to get out as I thought they (kids) were somewhere downstream in front of me." She tried grabbing branches near the creek bank along the way, but said she was moving too fast and they either snapped or slipped in her hands. Even though she is a strong swimmer, Ramsay said she decided at one point not to fight the current and save her strength. "I ran into a lot of trees and was bouncing all over. I wasn't trying to stop myself. I think I thought of myself as part of the search party," as she didn't know then that Leif and Abbie were already on dry land. Ramsay said the water was hot and murky. "I do remember yelling to the (police) officers on the shore, `Where am I going?' She knew that the creek emptied into Lake Ontario eventually, but hoped to be rescued before she got that far. "I went under a couple of street bridges and I could see the (emergency) lights of the (police) cruisers." Halton Regional Police had nine officers on the scene. Ramsay said she remembers seeing a long red rope strung low across the Depend on the largest www. .com Dealer in the Golden Horseshoe creek, just above its surface, with emergency services personnel in the water and on each side of the creek's banks holding onto the lifeline. She said she ran into the rope and that it took two big police officers to finally grab and pull her safely to shore. The mom and the two children who were in the water were treated at Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital and released with minor injuries. "I have lots of bumps and bruises and scratches," said Ramsay. The initial culprit in the affair, Leif's Pokémon flipflop, floated back to him as he recovered on the water's edge. Neighbours say Tuck Creek is prone to flash floods, although no warning signs exist near the area. On Friday afternoon, Conservation Halton issued a flood advisory, noting that up to 70 millimetres of rain had already fallen in northern parts of Halton's watershed, with more expected throughout the weekend. The advisory specifically forewarned, "Please advise all persons to use extreme caution around bodies of water and stay well back of stream banks. Please alert children in your care of these dangers." A police spokesperson spoke of the importance of educating children about the dangers of floodwaters. "Parents need to `creekwise' their kids," said Burlington Acting Staff-Sgt. Dan Gheller, "and tell them to stay away from the water when it swells like that." Several hours after the Burlington rescue, around 7 p.m. Saturday on the Muskoka River in Port Sydney, Ont., a young woman got into trouble in the nearby rapids. One of her friends, a young man, went in after her. The two adults were saved by bystanders, including federal Industry Minister Tony Clement, who ran to help from his nearby home. Clement said he dove in with his shorts and T-shirt and swam after the woman, but pulled back when he realized she was too far away, and felt an undertow pulling him down. Two other rescuers who had run around the shoreline strapped on a life-jacket and plunged into the roiling waters with a second life-jacket and saved the two. According to Barbara Byers of the Lifesaving Society, there have been 219 drownings in Canada in 2010 compared with 188 this time last year. 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