Fifteen people have died in water-related incidents during the current UK heatwave, including a 19-year-old man who was pulled from Balderton Lake in Nottinghamshire on Thursday afternoon and later died in hospital, prompting fresh 'cold water shock' warnings from police and fire services.
Emergency services across England have been stretched in recent days as unseasonably high temperatures have driven people to rivers, lakes and coastlines. What might look like an obvious way to cool down has, in case anyone needed reminding, repeatedly turned lethal. Most of the recent deaths have involved teenagers and young adults, many of them strong swimmers who appear to have underestimated how different open water can be from a supervised pool.
