Student who drowned during school canoe trip appeared to swim poorly, court hears
by Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press
Posted Jun 1, 2021 3:01 pm EDT
Photo of Jeremiah Perry. Breakfast Television
TORONTO – A young man who was on a fatal school canoe trip nearly four years ago says he didn’t notify the supervising teacher that
Adrian Coufadis says he teased Jeremiah Perry about his poor swimming abilities after seeing the 15-year-old struggle to reach their canoe as it drifted away from shore on the first day of the trip.
He says Perry was wearing a life jacket at the time, as safety rules required for canoeing, and eventually managed to flutter-kick the canoe to shore while Coufadis paddled.
TORONTO A young man who was on a fatal school canoe trip nearly four years ago says he didn t notify the supervising teacher that a student who later drowned appeared to be a bad swimmer. Adrian Coufadis says he teased Jeremiah Perry about his poor swimming abilities after seeing the 15-year-old struggle to reach their canoe as it drifted away from shore on the first day of the trip. He says Perry was wearing a life jacket at the time, as safety rules required for canoeing, and eventually managed to flutter-kick the canoe to shore while Coufadis paddled. Under cross-examination today, Coufadis who was 19 at the time of the trip was asked whether he reported his initial observation regarding Perry s swimming to Nicholas Mills, the teacher leading the trip.
A high school principal says he didn t check the results of a mandatory swim test before a student canoe trip during which a teenager drowned nearly four years ago.
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With her decades of paddling experience, Barb Weeden wouldn’t have taken Jeremiah Perry or his fellow students on that ill-fated Algonquin Park canoe trip that ended in the teen’s drowning.
And Weeden says she warned high school teacher Nicholas Mills that his group of novice paddlers and non-swimmers wasn’t ready for a challenging excursion to the back-country of the lake-filled wilderness park.
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“He said he’s been doing this for years and he didn’t seem too worried about it,” recalled the former executive director of Sparrow Lake Camp.