Swimming in a reservoir in inland China seems pretty safe. There’s no sharks and probably few alligators as well. But one unlucky swimmer recently learned that there are still dangers that lurk beneath the water’s surface.
Mr. Cheng works as a salesman in Yiwu city, Zhejiang province, and has been swimming since he was a kid. With the current heat wave,
he decided it would be a good idea to take a dip in the local reservoir
with some buddies. The friends splashed around for a while until some
locals came and said that they needed to lower the water level, opening
up some intake pipes at the bottom of the reservoir.
Cheng and friends didn’t think much about it and kept on swimming. According to Tencent News,
Cheng asked a friend to record as he attempted some moves in the water.
Cheng tried sitting on top of an inner tube and at that moment he and
the inner tube got sucked straight down into the water toward a
8-meter-long drain, passing out of sight in no time.
He was underwater for ten seconds before the water pushed him out of
the pipe from the other side, allowing him to get a breath of air.
Climbing up onto the shore, Cheng found that his swimming trunks were
torn and his body was scratched everywhere. Thinking back, he recalled
that he got sucked in butt first. He was so frightened that his mind
went totally blank, he had no choice but to resign himself to his fate.