Swimming at Bulls Bridge: safety first

KENT - A Civil War soldier once wrote to his wife that "soldiering is 99 percent boredom and 1 percent sheer terror." You could say the same thing about most rivers, including (or even especially) the Housatonic.

The Housatonic ambles gently along for 149 miles through two states. For the most part, its surface is flat, quiet, subdued. But in some spots, the water begins to churn, swirl and eddy. Submerged trees and rocks create hidden hazards for anyone foolish or courageous enough to try and swim among them.

The Housatonic has claimed several lives in the past year and a half.

Last spring, at the Great Falls in Salisbury and Falls Village, 16-year-old Kaelan Paton, an experienced river swimmer, drowned while trying to save a friend who had underestimated the power of the water.

Not long after, a man jumped in the water near Bulls Bridge in Kent to try and save his young niece, who had been swept up by the water. She survived; he died.

Two New York City residents have died in the last month, both of them at Bulls Bridge below the waterfall. Had either of them chosen to go a little farther upstream, to the calmer waters above the falls, they probably would have returned home safe at the end of their outing.

But calm flat water is somehow less appealing on a hot steamy day.

For a refreshing dip, the fast water that flows around the rocks below the falls seem so intoxicatingly cool. The spray flies into the air. The churning and splashing creates a literal sirens' call - one that reminds us that the sirens used their voices to lure sailors toward them, so their boats would crash on the rocks near shore.

Rick Vizzari is an avid outdoorsman, and a swimming coach at Cream Hill Lake in Cornwall and of Masters Swimming and triathlon classes in Lakeville. A kayaker, runner, swimmer and cyclist, he is not unduly afraid of nature and the elements.

But he certainly approaches them with caution, and he advises others to do so as well.

Drownings are fairly rare in the United States, he said, citing statistics from the Centers for Disease Control.  They occur about 3,400 times a year; one in five involves a child under the age of 14.

"Men are four times more likely to drown,"� he noted. "And most drownings that involve someone over the age of 15 occur in natural settings where there is no supervision."�

Vizzari met this reporter on Monday morning at the waterfall at Bulls Bridge, to share some safety tips and explain why this seemingly placid river can be so deadly.

The water levels are low in the river right now, he pointed out. There hasn’t been very much rain so far this spring or summer. Nonetheless, the water is still racing down at a pretty fast clip through the rocks and below the falls, and through the spillway that runs along the hillside a few dozen feet away.

In a sense, the water is most dangerous when it seems the safest. People often make the mistake of looking at the narrow width of the river, Vizzari said, and thinking that they can’t get into too much trouble because the shore is so near.

"That's the illusion of this river,"� he said. "Anyone can swim 20 yards, right? But add in the currents and the rocks and tree branches that can catch your feet and it becomes lethal."

And it's not as shallow as it seems.

"Look at it now,"� he said. "It seems like you could walk right across the river, but it's probably 8 feet deep over there in the middle."�

Sometimes the currents are visible; bubbles of water float along at different speeds and it's clear that one stretch of water is faster than another. Kayakers often steer toward these faster chutes, Vizzari said. The fast sections can be, perplexingly, right beside the slower sections.

But the whirlpools and eddies are often invisible - until you step or fall into one of them. There are several spots along the shore, Vizzari said, where you think you're stepping into a calm and shallow pool but the water is swirling so powerfully it has created holes in the rocks below.

"Kayakers know that when you look down at a river, it's never as shallow or as safe as it looks from shore,"� he said.

Novice visitors to the river also might not realize that the rocks are slippery; and that they can drop sharply and suddenly, causing bathers to lose their footing.

"The number one reason why people drown, technically, is that they're stepping from hot air into very cold water,� he said. “It makes them panic; and panic is the reason people drown."�

Head injuries are a particular danger in the Housatonic, he warned. This is, ironically, because the water is not especially deep — and the riverbed is rocky.

"That's why kayakers always wear helmets,"� he said.

For now, there aren't any signs around the river and the falls warning tourists that the Housatonic is not to be trifled with. Besides which, as Vizzari points out, "People always find a way to get in, even if you put up a fence."�

Of course there are many supervised spots for the public to swim in the Northwest Corner. But most require a town resident sticker.

The Housatonic is not "owned"� by any one town or any state. Technically, the water at Bulls Bridge (and at the Great Falls in Salisbury and Falls Village) is under the jurisdiction of the power company First Light (and formerly owned by Connecticut Light and Power). In a poster near the entrance to the falls, the power company invites recreational users to enjoy the Housatonic in many ways. Swimming is not included on the list.

For anyone who feels an urgent need to swim in the river in spite of the potential hazards, Vizzari shared a few simple tips: Swim in the calmer sections of the river above the dams and waterfalls, not in the rapids below. Always swim with a buddy. Don’t swim in water that you are not familiar with.

"I hate to see people feel that the water is so threatening,"� he said. "These drownings just reinforce that feeling. Water is so great. Swimming is so great. Everyone should enjoy it. Just exercise some caution."�

The same safety precautions apply to swimming and wading at Kent Falls, of course. With the high temperatures this week, the falls have been a particularly attractive destination. Early this week, the state shut off access to the falls because attendance there had reached full capacity.  Visitors should not try to breach the closed gates or climb the falls at night.